Spain PM calls early election after housing crisis defeat

AFP | Madrid

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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez yesterday called a snap election for November 29, after parliament rejected housing relief measures proposed by his minority government.

The defeat on Friday was just the latest political setback for the Socialist premier, one of the few European prime ministers from the left still in power.

“To do more, we need to renew and broaden the support of the people,” Sanchez, in office since 2018, said in a televised address, adding his aim was “to secure a much broader, progressive majority in parliament”.

The next general election was due by August 2027.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Madrid and other cities in Spain on Saturday to demand affordable housing.

The government’s proposed measures, which included automatic renewal of tenancy contracts and restrictions on evicting vulnerable tenants, were voted down by opposition parties in Spain’s parliament.

The defeat infuriated those protesting the country’s increasingly expensive housing market and underscored the difficulties his minority coalition government faces in passing legislation.

Spain has been operating under its 2023 budget, the last national spending plan passed by Sanchez’s government, for several years.

The demonstrations extended a crisis that has gone on for more than a week, triggered by the eviction last month of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her Madrid flat where she had lived for decades.