Sánchez considers whether to bring forward elections after Junts' no to the housing decrees

MadridThe Spanish government and Junts have engaged in an unprecedented standoff in Congress. After days of in extremis negotiation over the housing decree, the Junts members decided to strike down, with the votes of the PP and Vox, the regulation that suspended evictions and also indefinite rental contracts, and the PNV and Coalición Canaria also opposed it. To give significance to the moment, even the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, wanted to take the floor at the end of the plenary session to ask them to reconsider. "History will judge you more harshly than you imagine," he declared. The Junts members, however, last night, after meeting with their executive, had already informed the PSOE that if they did not withdraw the decree law, they would vote against the regulation approved on Tuesday at the Council of Ministers. Now Sánchez has opened a period of reflection this weekend – he will open a round of contacts with his circle – to decide whether to call elections.

"You are more interested in the electoral campaign than in solving people's lives," Miriam Nogueras accused them from the podium. "We are not afraid of the blackmail of the extremes," she added, since in her opinion Sánchez's measures "exacerbate the housing crisis." Former president Carles Puigdemont was also forceful on X. "Today we have seen one of the most obscene operations of political propaganda paid for with public money, at the service of an electoral campaign that will happen sooner or later, but it will happen. Go", he said, asserting that the operation is to "save the PSOE".

The significance of the vote has been such that even the left has requested that the vote be nominal: each deputy has expressed their 'yes' or 'no' out loud. "The overstepping is historic," warned Gabriel Rufián to Junts. "I will strive to ensure they end up in political ostracism." Sumar deputy Tesh Sidi went further and asked them "how many people have to commit suicide in Catalonia" for them to vote in favor of the housing decrees being debated in Congress.

The Spanish government considered that the context of social protest, with the encampments at Puerta del Sol and Plaça Catalunya, gave them the opportunity to push forward a housing package with the plurinational majority, including Junts, which had been stalled throughout the legislature. But the reality is that the vote ended like the previous ones, in which Junts vetoed the government's housing measures along with the PP and Vox. However, there is a difference from previous occasions: this time several PSOE sources assure that Pedro Sánchez does not rule out calling early elections as a response, since it has been confirmed that he does not have the arithmetic to carry out the housing policies he considers necessary. Socialist sources believe that housing is people's main concern and that the right "has made a mistake" with the direction of its vote. "They are not gauging the pulse of the citizenry well," they add from Moncloa, while advising more caution when assessing whether Sánchez will call elections. In fact, they believe that now is the time to analyze what has happened and also see the magnitude of the mobilizations planned for this Saturday in Madrid, Barcelona, and the rest of the State's capitals. "It is no longer a question of ideology, but of humanism," they resolve.

After two months with Ceuta at the center of public debate, in the last week the conversation has shifted toward social issues, which is where the Spanish government feels strong. That is why those in favor of calling early elections assure that they will not have a "better framework" between now and 2027 to be able to go to the polls. "Either with the people or with the vulture funds," Socialist leaders repeated throughout the day, already in campaign mode. However, it is also true that an election would completely alter the plans that Sánchez had until now. The Spanish president has always placed the elections in 2027 and they hoped that in this final stretch of the legislature the amnesty would be applied and that issues such as the new financing or the forgiveness of the FLA debt could also be approved.

In fact, not the entire PSOE actually believes that the best move is to call elections –after Ceuta, the socialists had suffered a decline–. To the left of the socialists, Sumar, Podemos, among others, are not yet articulated. Would Sánchez be capable of capturing the unrest regarding housing? Channeling the protests of Puerta del Sol electorally? It is the question that a leader of the left was asking at the gates of Congress, who expressed skepticism about the PSOE's ability to also mobilize the most left-leaning factions of the electorate without a aligned Sumar and Podemos.

Pressure on Junts

During the debate, Junts took all the criticism from the left-wing parties and also from the government. "Today they will be judged by their votes," insisted Isabel Rodríguez during the debate to Junts, who were listening attentively from their benches. "It is the moment of truth –she continued in a grave tone–, it is the time to deliver for the Spanish and the Catalans." The Minister of Housing defended that the first decree law she presented this Friday in the hemicycle contained "90%" of the measures that Junts had proposed and asked until the very end that they rethink their vote or at least abstain. In fact, she offered to process the measures later as a bill in order to include or change what they were not comfortable with.

What did Junts reply to them? Despite Rodríguez's offer, the proposal that Junts put on the table was that the Spanish government should withdraw the regulation and sit down to negotiate "behind closed doors" again with them. Sources from Miriam Nogueras' group claim that they had not validated the latest version of the text that the Council of Ministers approved on Tuesday and are suspicious of how the suspension of evictions, the extraordinary extension of rentals, or the veto on apartment purchases by vulture funds were regulated.

Despite the widespread criticism, several Junts leaders are satisfied with the decision made. "See you at the polls," assures one source, while others congratulate themselves on having recovered the connection with the Catalan business community after the 'Procés', where the post-convergent space shifted more towards the left. "Now we have a clear position," states another. In this sense, they interpret that if there are general elections, they will be the only ones to represent, they believe, an economic model different from that of the "far-left," which they attribute to the housing decrees of Sumar and Podemos –although in one of them, which Junts had also negotiated, the PNB and Coalició Canària joined in–. The Basque nationalists have expressed a "critical yes out of responsibility," but have pointed out that despite protecting the "most vulnerable," the measures would make it difficult to increase the supply of housing.

Feijóo asks Sánchez to set a date now

The PP and Vox have attacked the Spanish government and challenged it to call early elections. "Do you think you have the alibi? Then set a date. Dissolve the courts, call elections and let the Spanish people speak," demanded the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. "Nobody is thinking about Pedro Sánchez until 2031 anymore, but the fact is that nobody wants Pedro Sánchez for Christmas," he reaffirmed. It will be the Spanish president who, in the coming days, will decide whether to call people to the polls.