Spain's Sánchez calls snap election for Nov. 29 after housing bill defeat

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on October 5, 2026, that he would call early elections after his minority government's housing decrees were voted down in Congress three days earlier, according to Al Jazeera and Euronews. The Cortes Generales, Spain's parliament, was formally dissolved on October 6, and the election was set for November 29, 2026.

Sánchez has governed since 2018 without ever winning an outright majority, relying on shifting coalitions with regional and left-wing parties, Al Jazeera reported. Announcing the vote, he said he wanted to renew public support and build a larger progressive majority in parliament that could push through further social reforms, while acknowledging that part of that support base was currently dissatisfied, according to the same report.

What triggered the vote

On September 29, the government introduced two decree-laws responding to Spain's housing crisis, according to the English Wikipedia summary of the election and corroborated by news coverage of the period. The measures reportedly included a ban on evicting vulnerable tenants until 2030, restrictions on property purchases by investment funds until 2028, rent-control provisions, a VAT increase on tourist apartments, and zero-interest home-purchase loans of up to €50,000.

Congress rejected both decrees on October 2, in votes described in the Wikipedia entry as 178–172 and 184–166. The opposition conservative People's Party (PP), the far-right Vox, and the Catalan party Together for Catalonia (Junts) — a former government ally — voted against them, according to that source. Euronews reported that PP and Vox had separately criticised the government's handling of a migration situation in Ceuta, though it did not detail their specific objections to the housing decrees.

The protests behind the crisis

The unrest traces back to September 23, 2026, when María del Carmen "Maricarmen" Abascal, an 87-year-old Madrid resident, was evicted from the apartment where she had lived for 70 years. Al Jazeera reported that an investment fund had bought her building and raised her rent by more than 200%, to roughly $1,880 a month, after which she was removed from the property on a stretcher and hospitalized.

The eviction, broadcast live, galvanized the Madrid Tenants' Union, which organized demonstrations at Madrid's Puerta del Sol that drew tens of thousands of participants, Al Jazeera reported. Similar encampments later appeared in Barcelona, Málaga and other cities.

Abascal died in hospital on October 7, 2026, two weeks after the eviction, Al Jazeera reported. Her death renewed demonstrations, with protesters near the Spanish parliament chanting "Maricarmen lives, the fight goes on!" according to the same report.

Spain's two largest unions, UGT and CCOO, called a general strike over housing for November 11, 2026 — their first joint strike action in 14 years, according to Al Jazeera. Madrid Tenants' Union spokesperson Valeria Racu said housing costs now absorb most workers' wages, and questioned the value of minimum-wage increases when housing costs rise faster, according to the same report.

The numbers behind the crisis

Political landscape ahead of November 29

Opinion polls cited by Al Jazeera put the opposition PP ahead, potentially able to govern with Vox's support. In the outgoing parliament, PP held 137 seats, PSOE 121, and Vox 32, according to the Wikipedia summary of the election.

Sánchez's governing coalition of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and Sumar had depended on Junts's support, granted in exchange for an amnesty law, per the same source. Junts's vote against the housing decrees contributed to their defeat.