Pedro Sánchez weighs 29 November election after defeat on housing decrees

Parliamentary defeat and election pressure

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez spent the weekend in deliberations regarding whether to dissolve parliament and call early general elections for 29 November 2026. The political crisis escalated on Friday when the Congress of Deputies rejected two government decrees on housing policy by 178 votes to 172. The conservative People's Party (PP) and Vox voted against the measures alongside seven deputies from Junts per Catalunya, fracturing the government's fragile parliamentary majority. Leading figures within the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and several cabinet ministers have urged Sánchez to move immediately toward a snap vote rather than continue negotiating in a gridlocked legislature. A dissolution announced on Monday would make 29 November the earliest possible date under Spanish electoral law.

Housing crisis and street mobilization

The legislative defeat followed days of escalating street protests triggered by the eviction of 87-year-old disabled resident Maricarmen Abascal from her Madrid home on 23 September. Abascal had lived in the apartment for 70 years before an investment fund acquired the property and raised her monthly rent from 500 euros to 2,650 euros, later reduced in court to 1,650 euros against her monthly pension of 1,350 euros. On Saturday, 3 October, more than 70,000 demonstrators converged on Plaza de Cibeles in Madrid after marching from four different points across the city. Protest organizers from the Sindicato de Inquilinas warned that they are coordinating with the country's largest trade union federations to prepare a potential general strike unless authorities enact strict rent caps and stop evictions. Over the past decade, housing prices across Spain have increased by 63% and average rents have risen by 80%, contributing to roughly 25,000 evictions annually.

Opposition pressure and party positioning

Opposition leaders launched coordinated public campaigns demanding that the government dissolve the legislature immediately. The People's Party promoted the hashtag Elecciones ya across social media, while the PSOE responded with Yo voté sí to defend its rejected housing decree. Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida condemned the governing pact and called for an immediate end to the parliamentary term.

This is a legislature that never should have started. We all knew that renting the Moncloa Palace with Puigdemont as landlord was not the best idea.

PP Secretary General Miguel Tellado directly challenged the prime minister to sign the election decree without hesitation.

Pedro, do not think about it any longer, do it. Call the general election tomorrow, press the button.

PP spokesperson Ester Muñoz argued that Sánchez lacked the political nerve to face voters directly.

I do not believe it, because Pedro Sánchez is very cowardly. Pedro Sánchez has恐惧 / is afraid.

Polling projections and logistical hurdles

Pre-crisis seat projections place the conservative opposition well ahead of the governing coalition. A statistical simulation model from Madrid gave the combination of the People's Party and Vox an 85% probability of securing an absolute majority, projecting 137 seats for the PP, 107 for the PSOE, and 62 for Vox. That combined total of 199 seats sits 23 seats above the 176 needed for an absolute majority in the 350-seat Congress. Sánchez previously erased an eight-point deficit during the 2023 campaign, but socialist strategists now confront a gap of 15 to 16 percentage points in published surveys.

Institutional schedules on Monday also present practical hurdles for an immediate dissolution announcement. Sánchez is scheduled to open the 29th National Congress of Family Business in Madrid at 09:30, while King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia depart on an official state visit to Finland.