Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is reportedly considering calling a general election for November 29th amid the increasing possibility that the two major housing laws his government proposed will be voted down in parliament on Friday.
Spain’s press reported on Friday morning that Pedro Sánchez is considering bringing the general election forward by nine months in the event that two key housing laws are voted down by MPs.
This comes after Catalonia’s Junts said it would vote against the two decrees which include measures such as a moratorium on evictions and a ban on vulture funds, measures proposed by the ruling PSOE and Sumar left-wing parties on Tuesday as potential solutions to the country’s worsening housing crisis.
Junts, together with other right-wing parties PP and Vox, could well ensure that the two decrees don’t pass.
So far, smaller and regional parties such as Podemos, ERC, EH Bildu, Compromís, BNG and Coalición Canaria have said they will vote in favour of the two decrees. Basque nationalists PNV will vote against one of the two.
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Spanish daily El Diario cited government sources when reporting that Sánchez’s team is already working on this scenario of a snap election, and that November 29th would be the preferred date.
If the snap election isn’t called immediately, it could be moved to the following week, coinciding with Constitution Day (December 6th) in Spain, which falls on a Sunday.
Another Spanish news site, El Español, quoted members of the Spanish government as saying that the possibility of an early general election being called if the housing bills are voted down was “very probable”.
The Spanish government thought it had secured sufficient guarantees last Tuesday that Junts would support the decrees, but late on Thursday the Catalan nationalist party presented previously unmentioned objections to the content of the legislation.
Junts spokesperson Miriam Nogueras on Friday will present the government with some alternatives to salvage the new law but the separatist party has called for the decrees in their current form to be withdrawn, something the Socialists’ have already said they’re not prepared to do.
Sánchez’s team believes that in the current context of housing protests and growing discontent among the general public, a right-wing bloc objection to the housing decrees could work against them, particularly to the detriment of the main opposition party, the PP.
Consumer Affairs Minister Pablo Bustinduy told 20 minutos on Thursday that “if the right and far right block the solutions to the housing problem contained in these decrees, they will pay for it at the ballot box.”
An article in El Confidencial Digital on Friday which cites PP directives says the conservative party doubts Sánchez will call early elections quite yet, and that instead he will first try to get the state budget approved – something he’s failed to achieve for the past three years – before calling an election earlier than in August 2027 as expected.
The vote in parliament for the two housing decrees is scheduled for around 3pm Madrid time on Friday October 2nd.
