Housing appeals take centre stage

Pedro Sánchez, the PSOE candidate seeking re-election, spoke at the Cúpula del Milenio in Valladolid on 19 October, his second pre-campaign rally in Castilla y León. He targeted the regional governments of the PP and Vox, including Castilla y León, Andalucía and Madrid, which have announced appeals to the Constitutional Court against the government's housing royal decree-laws on the grounds that they invade regional powers. Sánchez mocked that position, recalled that PP and Vox voted against validating the decrees in Congress, and promised that over the next four years his government would reinforce and widen public housing regulation, including for young people.

He put it this way:

“They recognise that they have powers over housing and do not want anyone to exercise them, neither them nor anyone else.”

A packed hall in Valladolid

The PSOE put attendance at 2,800 people inside and outside the venue, where chairs were added outside as the hall filled, while El Periódico reported more than 2,500 people. Ministers Óscar Puente and Ana Redondo, both from Valladolid, accompanied Sánchez together with Carlos Martínez, the PSOE secretary in Castilla y León. Redondo, who also chairs the PSOE in Castilla y León, described her party as the 'bola blanca' of peace, inclusion, equality, justice and democracy, set against a 'bola negra' of rejection, hatred and injustice that she attributed to the right and far right. She predicted victory at the polls on 29 November, the date of the general election. The crowd chanted 'la fuerza de la gente', the party's slogan for that campaign, and repeated the name of Begoña, the prime minister's wife.

Pensions, the minimum wage and migrants

Sánchez said the public pension system is solvent and healthy, and argued that higher wages would strengthen its finances further. He credited the recent regularisation of migrants with adding half a million more contributors to Social Security. He accused PP and Vox of wanting to touch pensions, sick leave, women's right to abortion and the minimum wage (SMI), and pledged to raise the SMI every year he governs. He cited a statement by Alberto Núñez Feijóo on 19 October proposing that the minimum wage be agreed between employers and workers, and set his own commitment against it.

“The public pension system is solvent, healthy and enjoys extraordinary health.”

The progressive vote and the rivals

Sánchez asked progressive voters to concentrate their vote on the PSOE after Frente Amplio and Podemos failed to agree on lists for Congress, according to El País. Sánchez said that he is not asking for a victory like the one in 2023, but a broad victory for the progressive forces, as ABC reported. He said Feijóo and Abascal planned to govern like the chainsaw approach associated with Javier Milei, the Argentine president, whose cuts he cited. El País reported that Milei was due to meet the Disenso foundation and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid, in the week of 19 October. Sánchez is scheduled to hold a rally in Burgos on Wednesday, 21 October.

Storms, climate and evictions

Sánchez expressed solidarity with those affected by the DANA storm and the heavy rains lashing eastern Spain, and called for a State pact on the climate emergency. Carlos Martínez said that climate change was the main problem and that the victims in the Levante were suffering its effects as no one else. Sánchez also honoured the memory of an 87-year-old woman who died after being evicted from her home, as he had already done in Fuenlabrada on Saturday. He told the Valladolid crowd that the best way to defend the rights already won is to vote on 29 November.