Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a snap general election for November 29, 2026, on Monday, dissolving parliament eight months early after Congress rejected his government's emergency housing decrees — ending one of Spain's most fragile coalition legislatures and plunging the country into its most divisive election campaign in years.
The Parliamentary Defeat That Ended the Legislature
The trigger came on Friday, October 2, when Congress rejected two emergency royal decree-laws in an extraordinary sitting. Russpain reported that RDL 26/2026 fell 178–172 and RDL 27/2026 fell 184–166. The decrees had been approved by cabinet on September 29.
The vote exposed the full fragility of Sánchez's coalition. The conservative People's Party (137 MPs) and far-right Vox (32 MPs) voted against both decrees — but the decisive votes came from Junts, the seven Catalan pro-independence MPs whose support Sánchez had secured with the controversial 2023 amnesty for the 2017 Catalan secession attempt. Junts defected to vote with the right, alongside the Navarrese UPN; the Basque PNV and Coalición Canaria also opposed the second decree. Junts said it wanted a lighter text protecting landlords; the PNV complained that Sumar's ministers had never negotiated the text and warned it would shrink rental supply.
Sánchez has governed since November 2023 on a PSOE–Sumar coalition backed by separatist and regional parties. In his Moncloa address he said Spain needed "a much broader progressive majority to govern," framing the election as a choice about "rights and freedoms." The coalition-registration deadline is October 16, and a new left-wing platform, the "Frente Amplio," is set to launch on October 17.
The Housing Crisis Behind the Collapse
The decrees were an emergency response to a housing crisis that has become Spain's top public concern — cited by 37.5% of respondents in the CIS barometer. Average rents have almost doubled over the past decade, and asking prices for homes are up roughly 90%, according to Idealista. Rental costs rose 8.5% across Spain in 2025, and 9.7% in Madrid; Barcelona (€23.80 per square metre) and Madrid (€22.70) are the country's priciest rental markets.
RDL 26/2026 would have banned evictions of vulnerable tenants through 2030, extended expiring rental contracts, curbed bulk property purchases by investment funds, and tightened rules for short-term rentals. RDL 27/2026 would have given tenants automatic, repeated renewal of rental contracts at their option.
The spark that made the crisis politically unavoidable came on September 23, when 87-year-old disabled retiree Maricarmen Abascal was forcibly evicted from the Madrid apartment she had lived in for nearly 70 years after it was bought by an investment fund — carried out on a stretcher, on camera. Her landlord later restored her lease after the public backlash. Since September 26, protesters have maintained a tent camp at Madrid's Puerta del Sol; demonstrations spread to roughly 50 cities, and about 70,000 people marched in Madrid on October 3, according to government figures. Clashes in Valencia saw police fire rubber bullets and tear gas, while in Madrid police arrested three far-right activists trying to reach the Sol camp.
Two Sides, No Middle Ground
The housing debate has hardened into two camps. On one side: the government, tenant unions and housing activists. The Tenants Union (Sindicato de Inquilinas), whose spokeswoman Valeria Racu has become a leading voice of the protests, is demanding lower rents, seizure of "vulture fund" properties and an end to evictions — and is planning a general housing strike. Spain's two largest unions, CCOO and UGT, have announced a 24-hour nationwide general strike this autumn.
On the other side: landlords, property owners and the opposition. Landlord groups and their political allies argue that rent caps and forced contract renewals would shrink the rental supply and make the shortage worse. The PP, Vox and Junts voted the decrees down, and Junts leader Miriam Nogueras accused Sánchez of exploiting the housing crisis for electoral gain. Vox leader Santiago Abascal called the snap election "excellent news" and has made migration — linking it to housing, security and public services — a central campaign issue. Euronews noted that a migration crisis in Ceuta and corruption cases involving figures close to the Socialist Party have also piled pressure on the government.
The polls are genuinely contested: a September CIS poll suggested Sánchez's party would win if an election were held tomorrow, while Javier Carbonell of the European Policy Centre told ABC's The World that the polls point toward a victory for the right-wing opposition, with a PP–Vox combination seen as having a strong path to a parliamentary majority. If Vox enters a national governing coalition, it would be the first far-right participation in Spain's national government since the return to democracy.
Takeaway: On November 29, Spaniards will deliver a verdict not just on Pedro Sánchez, but on how a European democracy solves a housing crisis that has priced a generation out of its own cities. The campaign will be fought over rents, evictions and who Spain's housing market is really for — and neither side is backing down.
Reel music: Kevin MacLeod - Hitman (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0.