Tens of thousands of people have demonstrated across Spain as protests have spread since the conservative-dominated parliament rejected a bill proposing measures to address a housing crisis. On Friday, Parliament rejected two decrees proposed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s minority left-wing coalition government that aimed to address the housing crisis. capital, Madrid. María del Carmen Abascal’s eviction occurred after an international investment fund bought her building and increased the rent. Local media reports have suggested that Sánchez could call early elections for November, after noting the strength of Saturday’s protests across the country. The current Spanish legislature will end next summer. Will the real estate crisis cause early elections? Here’s what we know: What happened in parliament on Friday? Emergency measures proposed by Spain’s leftist government to address the country’s housing affordability crisis were not approved on Friday. The government had proposed two measures to protect tenants in the country. The first decree aimed to stop evictions of vulnerable people, make real estate speculation more difficult, impose stricter restrictions on short-term rentals, and provide tax incentives to encourage rental and housing construction. The second decree proposed that leases be automatically renewed when they expire, essentially making them indefinite. A property owner would have to pay a tenant 12 months’ rent to break the lease. Sánchez, who heads a coalition government made up of his Socialist Party and the far-left Sumar party, appealed to lawmakers in the run-up to the vote to put aside political calculations and pressures. “Let us think of the families who live with the constant anxiety of ever-increasing rents,” he said before the vote. But his government’s proposed measures were rejected by the majority of the 350-seat lower house of parliament. The right-wing Catalan separatist party Junts refused to back the housing decrees, saying they would ultimately tighten the housing market. The center-right Popular Party and the far-right Vox also voted against the measures. Miriam Junts’ Nogueras argued that the decrees would only lead to owners withdrawing their properties from the rental market and, therefore, increasing prices even further. “If they really wanted to protect people, control vulture funds and reactivate housing, they would have already done it. They have had eight years,” he added in X, referring to Sánchez’s government. The Minister of Health, Mónica García, said in Before the parliamentary vote, Marta Soler Gallart, president of the party. Department of Sociology of the University of Barcelona, explained that neither of the two decrees addresses the problem of housing in the medium or long term. “Models such as Vienna, with its low rents, are cited in support of these decrees, but it is overlooked that the Vienna model and others have low rents due to their long history of creating and maintaining public social housing,” Soler Gallart told Al Jazeera on September 30. “In Spain, however, public funds are invested in social housing that, after a time, the beneficiaries sell at market prices.” Soler Gallart also said the new measures hurt landlords with small or few properties by extending five-year leases for two more years and by providing an indefinite extension of their leases. “However, these extensions are not mandatory if the owner can demonstrate that they need the property for their own use,” he said. The investment fund that bought his building raised his rent by more than 200 percent to about $1,880 a month, a move aimed at driving out the long-term tenant to make way for lucrative tourist apartments. In recent years, Spain has seen protests against mass tourism, which has been linked to the real estate crisis and the rising cost of living. Spain is the second most visited country in the world and attracted 97 million tourists last year. While Abascal has returned home, according to his representatives, he has become the face of the country’s housing crisis, and people across Spain have been demanding that the government address the problem. Angered by parliament’s rejection of the government’s measures, tens of thousands of people took to the streets. “It’s a shame,” said Nando de Angulo, 26, who joined Saturday’s protest in Madrid. Reuters news agency. “This only shows that it is we, the people, who have to adapt to the political parties and not the politicians to what the people want, and this cannot continue like this.” While the protests were mostly peaceful, in the southeastern city of Valencia, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break up demonstrations. About 30 protesters managed to enter the City of Arts and Sciences, an iconic cultural building, before police evicted them. Meanwhile, in Madrid, Spanish police arrested three members of a far-right group and fired rubber bullets on Saturday night. Far-right activists, some of whom performed Nazi salutes, tried to reach protesters camped in Puerta del Sol, a central square in the Spanish capital, the Spanish government said. Valeria Racu, spokesperson for the Tenants’ Union, said Saturday’s demonstrations revealed “a new energy that we have not seen in a long time and an energy that is showing that eight days of popular power can achieve more than eight years of progressive government.” “Now the real politics begins, a politics that has always belonged to the people and that will return once and for all to the streets,” Racu added. Could the housing crisis lead to early elections? Housing is a sensitive issue in Spain because it affects the way people vote. The average rent in the country has almost doubled in the last 10 years. The average price per square meter has increased from 8.20 euros (about $9.08 at the time) in 2016 to 15.1 euros ($17.15) this year, according to real estate website Idealista. In an October 1 article for Vanity Fair, Spanish journalist Jorge Dioni López noted that after eight years in power, housing is what is causing Sánchez to lose support among educated young people, children of the middle classes. “Housing is our savings system and also the main means of transmitting wealth between generations,” he added. (PP) Alberto Núñez Feijoo urged Sánchez to “call elections as soon as possible,” claiming that he did not have the support of “neither the streets nor the parliament.” While Sánchez has not officially announced new elections, Spanish online news site El Diario has reported that elections could take place as early as November 29. Spain’s general elections are currently scheduled for July 2027.
