One grandmother got evicted, now all of Spain is going to the polls

It all began with one pensioner. Maricarmen Abascal, 87, from Madrid, was forcibly evicted from her flat because she could no longer afford a sharply increased rent. The scene set off mass protests across Spain. People demanded affordable housing and an end to what they call predatory rental policy.

The government tried to calm things down with two emergency measures: one would protect vulnerable tenants from eviction and limit property purchases by speculative funds, the other would introduce automatic extension of rental contracts. On Friday parliament rejected both, after the Catalan party Junts withdrew its support from the government.

On Monday morning Pedro Sánchez announced that Spain will hold an early election on 29 November, three years ahead of schedule. He had informed King Felipe VI of the decision on Sunday afternoon.

"To be able to do more, we must renew and widen the support of the people." (translated)

The prime minister said this in a televised address. He has governed since 2018 without a parliamentary majority, relying on fragile coalitions with Basque and Catalan nationalists. He has not passed a budget since 2023.

He also admitted his own mistakes.

"I know we made mistakes and that we did not manage to do everything we set out to do." (translated)

Polls promise him defeat. The conservative People's Party (PP) has around 32 to 34 percent support, Sánchez's Socialists (PSOE) 26 to 27 percent, and the far-right Vox 18 to 19 percent. If the PP forms a government together with Vox, it will be the first time since the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1975 that the far right sits in a Spanish government.

Opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo welcomed the news briefly: on the social network X, his party wrote just one word.

"Finally." (translated)

Feijóo described the election as a choice between two Spains.

"It is a choice between corruption and decency, between regression and prosperity, between a government whose only goal is to survive, and a country that looks to the future." (translated)

Besides the housing crisis, Sánchez is also dealing with investigations into alleged corruption inside his party and family, and with a summer migrant crisis in Ceuta. The housing squeeze is no empty phrase: Spain is estimated to be short of around 700,000 homes; the average rent has almost doubled in the past decade; house prices have risen by roughly 90 percent.

"Calls for an early election are also possible." (translated)