29-N: realities and fictions

1. The elections scheduled for next November 29th are not the consequence of a specific event (the express housing decrees) but rather of an unviable government at least since the events in Ceuta at the end of July, which to this day have still not been resolved. If Junts and the PNV had supported laws that, on the other hand, can be applied provisionally, the parliamentary precariousness would be the same. In this sense, whether the elections were on November 29th or in a few months, in the year 2027, when they were due, is irrelevant. The dramatization of the early call, as well as its overacted political interpretation, is part of a legitimate electoral strategy. In any case, it is just that: an electoral strategy that theoretically favors the PSOE and the parties that provide it with parliamentary support. For the moment, no poll suggests that this expectation equates to a victory.

2. Pedro Sánchez has governed with the support of Junts and the Basque Nationalist Party. Continuing to repeat that the parliamentary sum that has sustained him was "a left-wing project" is objectively ridiculous. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the sum of the PP and Vox represents the hard right, and that if they win, which is not at all unlikely, they will act in accordance with their ideas. Pedro Sánchez's government has had the support of very diverse formations. Each one has supported him for reasons that are anything but homogeneous. The reasons of Catalan independence, those of Spanish left-wing populism, or those of other groups are like chalk and cheese. Between the PP and Vox, however, there is an evident ideological continuity. The ideas are more or less the same, but the language and tone are different (for example, in relation to the issue of immigration, where Feijóo avoids using Abascal's register).

3. Voters know how the current parliamentary coalition around the PSOE works; at the regional level, they also know perfectly well where the sum of the PP and Vox leads (and they vote for it again). All of this is more important than it seems: betting on one or the other no longer implies any uncertainty. Everyone knows what they are getting into.

4. Throughout the nearly eight years of PSOE governments led by Sánchez, or the left-wing city councils in Barcelona, the housing situation in the Spanish state has worsened to levels never seen before. By this I am not saying, nor even insinuating, that the responsibility –in causal terms– is theirs. The housing problem has a European scope and derives from very diverse facts. However, in the case of Ada Colau's mayoralty, for example, no measure was produced that helped to substantially mitigate or soften the problem. Neither has it happened in the Madrid of Ayuso/Almeida, nor in any other large city council. All of this suggests that if they want to place the issue of housing at the center of the electoral debate, it may end up backfiring on them. In the interview that TVE conducted a few days before her eviction (it is posted on the station's official website), Maricarmen Abascal clearly blamed, and in this precise order, Pedro Sánchez, Ayuso and Almeida for her problem. Beware, then, because housing demagoguery is loaded by the devil.

5. The issue of leadership is also relevant for contextualizing the upcoming elections. The figure of Pedro Sánchez is very eroded in Spain, but in the international arena, the Madrid-born politician has magnificent expectations. He has managed to make a place for himself thanks, among other things, to having intelligently stood up to Trump. Feijóo, on the other hand, is aware that this is his last opportunity, and I assume that this causes him a certain anxiety. On the other hand, his monotonous and predictable discourse does not seem very encouraging. I believe, in any case, that what ends up deciding a vote is not the candidate's oratory.

6. Neither the elections of November 29th, nor others being held right now in Europe or America, are intelligible without bearing in mind a profound change of mentality, generally of a reactive nature, related, at the very least, to three factors: the impoverishment of the middle class, the migratory flow, and the family model. Those who abstract from this always end up being wrong (but they never rectify): "Milei will collapse", "Lula has it won", "In Scandinavian countries this cannot happen", etc. It is understandable that this change of mentality is conveniently confused with an ideological change. They are related things, but in no way the same. Unlike ideologies, mentalities have a subterranean and slow, yet stable, path.