Campaign launch in Dos Hermanas

Pedro Sánchez opened the Socialist (PSOE) pre-campaign on Saturday at a rally in Dos Hermanas, a town in the Seville metropolitan area that he had also used to launch his 2023 campaign. Sources report about 5,000 people attended the event at the Los del Río auditorium. The snap general election is scheduled for 29 November, and Sánchez's government does not hold a majority in the chamber. Sánchez spoke alongside María Jesús Montero, the PSOE deputy secretary general and head of the party's Andalusian branch, and Francisco Rodríguez, the town's mayor.

Housing decrees and the eviction that sparked protests

Sánchez devoted much of his speech to housing. He said the next Parliament, with a broad progressive majority, "will reinforce and maintain" the housing decree-laws that protect small landlords and tenants against speculation. The decrees were rejected by Parliament last week, along with a second housing text presented by his government, and that rejection led him to call the early election. Sánchez said he hopes the measures can be approved soon, with some modifications, through a special procedure in the dissolved Congress of Deputies.

The campaign opened three days after the death of Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old pensioner whose eviction from her Madrid home at the end of September triggered outrage and large demonstrations that led to the political crisis. Sources report she died in hospital on Wednesday. Encampments by activists and protesters demanding stronger tenant protections remain in several cities, especially central Madrid.

“Maricarmen and all those who are mobilizing with her, as well as all those who are mobilizing for the just cause of housing, have opened the way.”

Opposition response

Sánchez accused the opposition of trying to pit small landlords against tenants "so that we don't look up", a phrase he used to refer to large holders and vulture funds. He said the Partido Popular and Vox were questioning postal voting and the naturalisation of descendants of Civil War exiles. Sánchez also recalled that the decree he approved after dissolving the Cortes had been rejected by the Partido Popular, Junts and Vox.

“They are trying to scare people.”

Mood in the hall

Sources describe mixed views on his record among the audience, citing the rising cost of living and a series of judicial cases affecting his inner circle, including his wife Begoña Gómez. Pre-campaign opinion polls were described by El Confidencial as not very favourable to the governing party, though the mood at the rally was upbeat. A party video released the same day focused on insults directed at Sánchez and on rejecting doubts about postal voting raised by Vox and part of the PP.