Socialist Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez has called a snap general election for November 29 after Congress rejected two housing decrees brought forward by his administration.
Speaking at the La Moncloa Palace, the embattled Prime Minister claimed that the snap election is required to “renew and expand the support of the people and “bringing the elites to their knees,” El Español reports.
The decision comes after Sánchez spent what it is being described as a “weekend of reflection” with members of his innermost circle.
In his announcement, Sánchez called upon Spaniards to vote in the snap election and choose between “joining the far-right wave” or to keep Spain as a “bastion of openness, social justice, and environmental responsibility.” Sánchez will preside over a Council of Ministers later this day that will officially sign off on the dissolution of Congress, automatically triggering the snap election process.
The snap election announcement comes just days after the Spanish Congress shut down two housing-related bills presented by the central government in response to a series of nationwide protests that erupted in recent days. Notably, members of the Catalan separatist party Junts, which the government hoped would support the bills, voted against them.
“We’ve also had to work with a very rowdy Congress, where, absurdly, many confuse reaching an agreement with betrayal and blocking progress with winning,” Sánchez said on Monday. “We’ve also had to fight against very powerful economic and social elites who don’t run for office but want to continue controlling our country.”
El Mundo explained that after the Council of Ministers meets to dissolve Congress later today, the corresponding decree will be officially published on Tuesday. At that point, a 54-day time period will begin in accordance to local laws, leading to November 29, the date announced by Sánchez for the snap election. Per El Mundo, Sánchez informed King Felipe VI of his demotion on Sunday, hours before the monarch departed for an official visit to Finland.
Per ABC, Sánchez and his administration reportedly seek to utilize the snap elections and capitalize on the ongoing housing protests in a last ditch effort to stay in power — as all recent polling suggested that the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) was on track to loosing in August 2027, the date when Spain intended to hold regular elections.
The snap election announcement also comes two months after the mass migrant invasion of Ceuta — an event with dramatic consequences for the inhabitants of the Spanish exclave, and which has led to numerous massive protests against Sánchez across Spain over the past weeks.
Spanish outlets pointed out that Sánchez made no mention of Ceuta during his Monday morning announcement, and simply limited himself to referring to the nation’s ongoing housing crisis.
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Similarly, he made no mention of other scandals surrounding his family and administration, such as his wife Begoña Gómez’s upcoming embezzlement trial, and other ongoing corruption cases involving high-ranking government and PSOE members.
Santiago Abascal, the leader of the anti-mass migration VOX party, reacted to Sánchez’s announcement during a Monday morning interview with Antena 3 — stating that he has learned not to “count his chickens before they hatch.” Abascal stressed that even thought he polls are against Sánchez, he will remain cautious.
Abascal affirmed that the upcoming snap poll will be “very uncertain,” and recounted the events of 2023, when polls also reflected that the socialists were on track to loose, only to Sánchez and his “accomplices” managing to form a ruling majority after the election.
“I must not begin without pointing out that we are going to the polls with Ceuta under occupation and with a candidate serving Morocco’s interests named Pedro Sánchez,” he said.
The VOX party leader affirmed that he sees Sánchez as a man “capable of anything,” and asserted, “for a long time now, I’ve avoided putting myself in the mind of a psychopathic figure who is capable of doing all sorts of things.”
“He [Sánchez] is capable of anything. He’s tried to grab attention, in this case, to call for elections, which I’m glad about, because we’ve been demanding it for a long time, especially the Spanish people, but I hadn’t given much thought to what he might do,” Abascal said.