Sanchez calls for early elections: ‘The choice is between going backwards with the far right or moving forwards’

“The time has come for you, the people of Spain, to decide what future you want for yourselves and for your country: whether you want to join the wave of the far right, which is causing regression wherever it governs,” or whether “you want Spain to continue to be a bastion of openness and social justice”, “whether you want the country to regress or to continue to move forward,” added the Spanish Prime Minister.

According to El País, the decision is said to have been reached following a weekend of reflection during which Sánchez is reported to have assessed both the internal balance of power within the PSOE and the growing social pressure. Within the party, in fact, the majority is said to be pushing for an immediate vote, viewing the mobilisation over the housing issue as a political opportunity to turn the parliamentary defeat into an election campaign. The Socialists’ reasoning is that, following the ‘no’ vote by Junts – Carles Puigdemont’s right-wing Catalanist party, which joined the People’s Party and Vox in voting ‘no’ in the Chamber against the decrees – it is becoming increasingly difficult to envisage a full parliamentary year without a new budget law and with a parliamentary majority capable of supporting the government’s actions.

The issue of housing, which is mobilising millions of Spaniards, offers the PSOE the chance to accuse the right-wing parties and Catalan separatists of having prevented the government from taking action on the housing crisis. “Now there is an opportunity,” is therefore the conviction gaining ground within the party. A strategy that would allow the Prime Minister to present himself not merely as the head of a government defeated in Parliament, but as the leader asking the Spanish people for a stronger mandate to govern. The scenario, which the Prime Minister’s ‘inner circle’ at Moncloa is said to have been working on over the last 48 hours, is a more complex and politically daring solution: to call an election and, at the same time, reintroduce at least some of the housing measures via a new decree. This is the scenario reported by *El Independiente* and also analysed by *El País*. The dissolution of the Cortes would not, in fact, prevent the government from carrying out its duties and adopting new decree-laws until the elections.

The difference would lie in the ratification procedure. With Parliament dissolved, the ratification vote would move from the plenary session of Congress to the Permanent Deputation, the body which exercises some of the functions of the Houses during the dissolution period. Here, the required majority would be 35 votes out of 69. The PSOE and Sumar, the parties in the governing coalition, control 31 of these and would therefore need a further four votes. These could come from EH Bildu, ERC, Podemos and PNV, parties which had already supported the first decree on protection against evictions. In this scenario, Junts’ vote against the measure would become irrelevant.

A strategy that would allow Sánchez to reintroduce at least the so-called ‘anti-eviction shield’ even whilst the Cortes are dissolved, offering a concrete response to the pressure from the streets. The Prime Minister could thus present himself to the electorate both as the head of government calling the country to the polls and as the leader who, right up until the very last day, is attempting to tackle the housing crisis. It is a narrow path, but it could represent a possible way out of the crisis for Sánchez.

Not least because the decision to go to the polls straight away would have a further advantage: it would prevent the PP and Voz, in opposition, from dictating the narrative of the campaign by focusing it on the migration crisis in Ceuta or on the investigations into alleged corruption involving Socialist leaders, or even on the forthcoming trial before a jury of Begona Gomez, the Prime Minister’s wife. The stakes are high. And the PP is just waiting for the election to be called. Its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, argues that Spain has “the right to decide immediately” because “the country can’t take it any longer”. The progressive camp, on the other hand, appears more divided. The five ministers and leaders of Sumar have met and announced that on 17 October they will present the Frente Amplio’s candidacy for the forthcoming elections. Podemos, which has not yet decided whether to join a united list, is instead calling for the election to be avoided.