{"id":640259,"date":"2026-10-08T14:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T14:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/640259\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T14:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T14:52:15","slug":"can-sanchez-convince-spanish-voters-he-is-their-best-hope-for-fairer-housing-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/640259\/","title":{"rendered":"Can S\u00e1nchez convince Spanish voters he is their best hope for fairer housing? | Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even before Mar\u00eda del Carmen Abascal died on Wednesday night<\/a>, a mere fortnight after her eviction from the Madrid flat<\/a> where she had lived for most of her life, the frail 87-year-old woman had become the enduring face of Spain\u2019s housing crisis.<\/p>\n

Her plight \u2013 and the wider issue it embodied \u2013 had led to street demonstrations, the creation of a protest camp in the middle of the Spanish capital<\/a>, and spurred the socialist-led government to propose emergency measures to facilitate and protect access to housing. When rightwing and far-right parties voted down those measures<\/a> in congress last week, the prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, responded by announcing a snap general election<\/a> for the end of November.<\/p>\n

Flowers and candles are placed in memory of Mar\u00eda del Carmen Abascal at a housing protest camp in Puerta del Sol, Madrid, on Thursday. Photograph: Borja Sanchez-Trillo\/EPA<\/p>\n

Abascal\u2019s death now looks set to focus even more attention on housing in the run-up to that election and, in particular, on what her lawyer has called<\/a> \u201cthe shameful violence of these types of evictions and the evident impact and consequences they can have on people\u2019s health\u201d.<\/p>\n

With more than 42% of Spaniards identifying access to housing as their main worry<\/a> and with rents having risen by 80% over the past decade<\/a>, the most pertinent question may be: why has it taken the eviction of an octogenarian and the accompanying protests to shake Spain\u2019s political class into action? To which the answer could be that, despite years of protests against overtourism and gentrification<\/a>, the tipping point had not been reached. Now, arguably, it has.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Spain\u2019s state centre for sociological research published polling<\/a> that showed that 76.3% of those surveyed were in favour of the state intervening in the market \u201cas much as necessary to guarantee everyone\u2019s access to housing\u201d, while 79% believed housing should be prioritised as a constitutional right.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez\u2019s socialist-led government is keen to persuade voters that it is the only political force that cares about rents and tenants\u2019 rights \u2013 hence the emergency measures, which have been redrafted into two new decrees after their defeat in parliament last week. The 21 measures include facilitating renting or buying a new home; extending eviction protections for vulnerable residents; prohibiting speculative real estate purchases, and granting tax breaks to property owners and tenants who pay on time.<\/p>\n

Pedro S\u00e1nchez: \u2018a matter of simple common sense; a matter of humanity\u2019. Photograph: Burak Akbulut\/Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are measures that, if I may say so, are a matter of simple common sense; a matter of humanity,\u201d the prime minister said on Tuesday. \u201cThey unite small property owners and tenants while standing up to vulture funds, precisely because they target only those who view housing merely as a commodity for speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The measures come almost three years after the prime minister promised to build 184,000 affordable public rental homes<\/a>. His government has also sought to address soaring housing prices by introducing a law allowing authorities to cap \u201cdisproportionate\u201d rent prices in some areas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those who had voted down last week\u2019s decrees, S\u00e1nchez said, had done so despite studies showing the measures enjoyed \u201ccross-cutting support that transcends ideology\u201d, adding that the public was in favour of regulating \u201ca dysfunctional market\u201d. He is now hoping that at least one of the decrees will be passed by congress\u2019s permanent council, a special body that operates when parliament is not in session. Its approval could go some way to convincing voters that his administration is taking the housing issue seriously.<\/p>\n

The leader of Spain\u2019s right-wing opposition People\u2019s party, Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o (centre), has promised to address the crisis despite his party voting against the proposed measures last week. Photograph: Antonio Sempere\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Others disagree. Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o, the leader of the conservative People\u2019s party, which voted down the measures last week, has said it is a bit late for S\u00e1nchez, who has been prime minister since 2018, to suddenly appoint himself Spain\u2019s housing champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHousing has been the big failure of this government but will be the success story of the one that follows it,\u201d he said on Monday. Feij\u00f3o, whose party is leading the polls, added: \u201cWhen a prime minister has been in power for eight years, it\u2019s hard to blame others for what he\u2019s failed to do.\u201d The PP has promised to address the crisis by building 200,000 homes a year, lowering taxes and cutting down on bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

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However, the PP\u2019s decision to side with the far-right Vox party and the rightwing Catalan pro-independence Junts party to fell the measures has left it looking less than committed to the issue of the day. S\u00e1nchez and his allies will be hoping that fact will not be lost on voters as the election campaign kicks off and as trade unions prepare a general strike over housing for 11 November.<\/p>\n

Mindful, perhaps, of the distance between his words and his party\u2019s voting history in congress, Feij\u00f3o called for people not to manipulate Abascal\u2019s death to suit their own purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo campaigning, no political parties, no partisan ends, no more bricks in the wall,\u201d he said on Wednesday night. \u201cWhen a person dies there should be nothing but respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Migrants try to make their way past police officers in Ceuta after mass crossings on foot and by sea at the end of July from Morocco into Spanish territory. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura\/Reuters<\/p>\n

And yet, despite the primacy of housing as an issue, Feij\u00f3o opted to start his campaign in Spain\u2019s North African territory of Ceuta, where at least 141 people died as tens of thousands tried to cross over<\/a> from neighbouring Morocco at the end of July. The Spanish government\u2019s handling of the mass crossing, which saw about 80,000 people enter Ceuta, has been criticised at home and abroad. Speaking in the territory on Wednesday, Feij\u00f3o promised that its safety would be at the \u201ctop of [the] in-tray\u201d if he became prime minister.<\/p>\n

Vox, meanwhile, has responded to Absacal\u2019s death by posting footage of a TV interview in which she said she held S\u00e1nchez responsible for what had happened to her. The far-right party accused the socialists of using \u201cthe suffering of an elderly person to stage a campaign to hide the government\u2019s responsibility in the housing disaster\u201d. It also suggested that S\u00e1nchez had visited \u201cruin and death\u201d on Spain in the form of the floods that killed 230 people in Valencia two years ago<\/a>, last year\u2019s nationwide power cut<\/a>, the deadly train crash in southern Spain in January<\/a>, and recent events in Ceuta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even before Mar\u00eda del Carmen Abascal died on Wednesday night, a mere fortnight after her eviction from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-640259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}