Spain's socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, took a big hit today when both parts of his new housing plan were scrapped by a vote of the lower house. Now there are reports he may call for a snap election.
This all started last week with the eviction of an 87-year-old pensioner named Maricarmen Abascal, who was living in a Madrid apartment. Her eviction, after the rent rose past the total value of her pension, led to massive street protests.
An 87-year-old Spanish woman was forcibly evicted Wednesday from the Madrid apartment she had lived in for more than 70 years, in a case that highlights a growing housing crisis in the country.
Video showed Maricarmen Abascal, who is a wheelchair user, being taken out of the building in the Spanish capital’s Retiro neighborhood on a stretcher and driven away in an ambulance...
The case has brought new attention to an ongoing housing crisis in major cities across Spain, as gentrification has caused rents to skyrocket and the stock of affordable housing to shrink, leading to fierce public anger.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Madrid to protest the eviction, some setting off flares. They carried placards reading “Not one more eviction, not one less neighbor, we are all Maricarmen” and “right to housing at a fair price.”
Those protests over housing quickly spread everywhere.
🇪🇸Sánchez in Barcelona
— Real News (@DrNeculai) September 29, 2026
Protesters are toppling street barriers and pushing against the police cordon in front of the Congress Palace. They are demanding that Sánchez resolve the housing crisis—housing that is now being given to millions of migrants.pic.twitter.com/41sY5uXSbj
Pressure was applied directly to PM Sanchez who, as a good socialist, was expected to just make the problem of rising rents go away.
Demonstrators camping in a central Madrid square have vowed to keep up the pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez over Spain’s housing crisis.
— Daily Express Malaysia (@DailyExpress_MY) September 30, 2026
Credit: AFP pic.twitter.com/oA2OfJseun
And Sanchez tried to do exactly that, proposing two new laws that would, among other things, outlaw evictions for several years.
The left-wing coalition government responded to the social anger by hurriedly drawing up the two decree-laws in an effort to defuse the protests.
The first decree included the suspension of evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030, a two-year extension to rental leases due to expire before 2028, tax increases for tourist apartments, and a restriction on the purchase of residential properties by what the government calls "vulture funds".
The second decree was more controversial, because it included the automatic renewal of rental contracts, a major demand of many on the left and the Sindicato de Inquilinas.
From the start, there was concern that lumping all landlords together with large funds buying up housing was a mistake.
“We all agreed that evictions — where the property is owned by a fund, a vulture fund, run by someone managing millions of euros — obviously need to be stopped,” Junts parliamentary spokesperson Míriam Nogueras said on RTVE.
“Lumping together in this category those who have invested their savings in a flat, a restaurant or a property — putting them all in the same basket — is a mistake,” she added.
PM Sanchez leads a minority government, which means the only way these things could pass is if he got support from smaller parties. And heading into the vote today, he begged them to go along.
"I don't ask you, I beg you to be brave and consistent," Sánchez said, moments before the two votes took place. "Because they are not just ambitious measures, they are necessary".
He appealed to lawmakers "to put order and humanity into [the housing] market, because if we don't, it will bring down our society".
But in the end both bills went down to defeat.
MPs rejected the first decree by 178 votes to 172 and voted against the second by 184 to 166.
Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered outside Congress as the debate took place and there were angry scenes.
Now the minority government has said it will take the weekend to decide what to do next. But snap elections are a strong possibility. This is basically PM Sanchez taking a bet that people are angry enough to hand him more power so he can pass some version of these bills.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez looks increasingly likely to call a snap election as early as Nov. 29 after the defeat of two key housing decrees in parliament on Friday.
There initially appeared to be enough parliamentary support to pass at least one decree. But late on Thursday, the Catalan separatist Junts party, which defends landlords’ rights, announced it would oppose both measures, ensuring their defeat.
Sánchez responded defiantly to Junts’ move, saying on X he would not withdraw the decrees and casting the parliamentary vote as a breaking point: “The hour of truth has arrived,” he wrote, adding that lawmakers were obliged to cast “votes that will define them for generations to come.”
He went all in on this and now his only option may be to double down. Sanchez has been dogged by a bunch of corruption issues, which have come right up to his doorstep. Earlier this year his transport minister was sent to prison for COVID-era corruption.
Spain’s supreme court has jailed the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos for 24 years for taking bribes on public contracts for sanitary equipment such as face masks during the Covid pandemic.
Ábalos’s aide, Koldo García, was jailed for 19 years in a trial that is one of several scandals to have enveloped the government of Pedro Sánchez over recent months.
The case is seen as particularly damaging for Sánchez because Ábalos was his trusted right-hand man for many years.
The housing issue probably looks to Sanchez like a good opportunity to change the subject and reset his dwindling popularity. We'll have to wait a few more days to see if he calls for a snap election and then a few weeks after that to see how it turns out.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy HotAir's conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member