Pedro Sánchez calls snap election for November 29
Sánchez announced from Moncloa that he reversed plans to finish his four‑year term after a parliamentary defeat over housing measures.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez dissolved parliament and called a snap parliamentary election to be held on November 29.
After a weekend of consultations with his closest advisers, Sánchez spoke from the Moncloa Palace in Madrid and said he had reversed an earlier plan to serve his full four‑year term, when regular elections had been expected next year.
“Therefore, the time has come for Spaniards to decide what future they want for themselves and for their country. Now everything depends on you. Just look to the horizon to understand that the world is entering a very complex era of transformation and transition, a time of great tensions, a climate emergency, social changes, but also technological changes, with very large changes brought by artificial intelligence,” Sánchez said.
Reasons and immediate context
The decision for a snap vote follows a parliamentary defeat for Sánchez’s minority government on Friday, when deputies rejected measures aimed at addressing Spain’s housing crisis. Sánchez had repeatedly insisted he would complete his four‑year mandate and that the next regular elections would be in 2027.
Sánchez presented the election as a decisive choice over Spain’s direction, framing it as a contest between “a wave of the far right” and a course of “openness, social justice and environmental responsibility.” He said his objective is to “secure a much broader progressive majority in Parliament.”
The announcement comes amid large public protests over rising housing costs. Hundreds of thousands marched in Madrid and other Spanish cities on Saturday demanding more affordable housing, after the eviction last month of 87‑year‑old Maricarmen Abascal from the flat she had lived in for decades. Demonstrators subsequently set up a tent encampment in the city centre.
Opposition parties led by the centre‑right People’s Party (PP) and the far‑right Vox rejected the government’s measures on Friday, which had included automatic lease renewals and limits on the eviction of vulnerable tenants. The parliamentary defeat highlighted the difficulty Sánchez’s minority coalition faces in passing legislation. Spain has also been operating under the 2023 budget, the last national budget approved during Sánchez’s time in office.
Recent opinion polls generally show the opposition conservative People’s Party ahead of Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), setting the stage for a tightly contested campaign in the weeks before November 29.
Photo: press material from the event
