Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has put everything on the line and announced early elections in Spain. The campaign will inevitably be marked by the housing crisis, migration and the rise of right-wing populists.
Spain's economic indicators have been positive recently, but politically the country has been in crisis for months. On Monday, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez reacted surprisingly: he announced early elections for November 29.
Why did Sanchez call for elections?
The decision to call early parliamentary elections was preceded by a political defeat for the government. On Friday, October 2, Sanchez's special decrees to solve the housing crisis failed in parliament. The seven deputies from the conservative separatist party of Catalonia “Junts”, on whose support the government has been counting since 2023, voted against them. Now Sánchez is trying to secure a “much broader progressive majority”.
The defeat affected a government whose parliamentary base has already been fragile for months. The crisis surrounding mass migration to Ceuta and the numerous cases of corruption in the entourage of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, but also related to Sánchez himself, burdened the government.
Then came the “Maricarmén” case: the forced eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her home after living there for over 70 years, making the housing crisis a major political issue. Meanwhile, the elderly Spaniard died in the hospital where she was admitted due to exhaustion.
The rejection of the decrees now allows Sánchez to present himself as a defender of tenants. But it is not clear whether his calculations will work out.
What role does the pressure on the streets play?
For three years now, the housing problem has been a major concern for Spaniards. According to estimates by the Spanish Central Bank, the country currently lacks about 750,000 homes, and by 2028 the number could exceed one million. More than half of young people between the ages of 18 and 34 live with their parents or are financially dependent on them. Real estate prices are growing three times faster than wages, and with a share of only 1.7 percent of social housing, Spain is at the bottom of the EU rankings.
For the tenants' movement, Sánchez's plans do not go far enough. The conservative opposition and business leaders warn that imposing stricter rent caps could only exacerbate the problem.
Is the end of Sanchez's governing model coming?
Since the 2023 elections, Sanchez has ruled without a majority in parliament. His socialists are in coalition with the left-wing union "Sumar", but in recent times they have depended on the votes of smaller parties - such as the Basque and Catalan regional parties, but especially on the votes of the Catalan separatists from the "Junts". Gradually, however, this structure became increasingly unstable. In the first half of 2026 alone, the government lost almost every fourth vote.
The state budget is the best indication of how big the blockade has become in the meantime. Spain is still working on the 2023 budget, as the prime minister has failed to pass a new budget in parliament during his entire term. In the end, the “Junts” also withdrew its support for the housing issue, a topic that has been at the top of the agenda after the national protests.
What came of the Ceuta crisis?
At the end of July, over 70,000 people crossed the border from Morocco to Ceuta in a very short time. And although the government soon declared the crisis over, two months later, at least 10,000 migrants are still in the exclave with a population of 80,000. Police cleared a makeshift camp inhabited by about 3,000 people only last Sunday.
The crisis has even changed Sanchez's relatively liberal migration policy. A draft obtained by Reuters would speed up asylum and deportation procedures and impose stricter rules. Rights groups have criticized the move.
How strong is the opposition?
At first glance, Spain's conservative Popular Party (PP) is the favorite for the upcoming snap elections at the end of November. But the real winner in recent months has been the right-wing populist Vox. Its support has since risen to 18 percent, six percent more than in the 2023 election. This increases the chances of the center-right parties gaining a majority to govern.
However, the leader of “Vox” Santiago Abascal has meanwhile begun to set conditions for cooperation. An advantage for Spanish citizens, economic deregulation and a much tougher migration policy, reaching the so-called “remigration”, i.e. the return of migrants to their home countries. In this situation, the chairman of the Popular Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, will find himself facing a difficult balancing act. To displace Sánchez, he will also have to attract voters from the political center. But at the same time, he will need a partner who is campaigning much further to the right to form a governing majority.
For the international media, Prime Minister Sánchez is currently one of Trump's most important critics in Europe. The head of government opposed Trump's demands for a five percent defense spending, refused to provide Spain with a military base for the war against Iran and criticized the US-Israeli strikes. Because of this, Trump even temporarily threatened to sever trade relations. At the same time, Sanchez explicitly contrasts his migration policy with Trump's deportation-oriented policy and attacks US tech oligarchs.
However, Sanchez is also one of the most prominent social democratic prime ministers of a major EU country. If the left loses the election, the European Council will lose one of its strongest voices against Trump in the person of Sanchez. He is a prime minister who has consistently positioned himself against ever-increasing defense spending, has a liberal course on migration policy and has been more critical of Israel in relation to the war in Gaza than most of his European colleagues.
Source: www.dw.com