Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain, one of Europe’s premier political escape artists, had searched in vain for months for a route to remain in power after nearly a decade in office.
He had tried to rally his left-wing base by presenting himself as a counterweight to President Trump, clashing with him on issues like the environment and the war in Iran. But scandals among Mr. Sánchez’ inner circle kept dragging him down.
He won leftist plaudits for giving a pathway to legal status to more than a million undocumented people, whom he presented as critical to the economy’s continued growth. But a chaotic surge of 80,000 migrants in July into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa, muddied that picture and instead gave the conservative opposition a shot of energy.
So when Spanish lawmakers, including many conservatives, rejected Mr. Sánchez’ proposal on Friday for emergency renter protections popular with left-wing Spaniards, he seized on the defeat as an opportunity to regain the political initiative.
He pulled the plug on his third consecutive government, called for early elections on Nov. 29 and, in a nationally televised speech Monday morning, framed the contest as a choice “to move backward or to keep moving forward.”
The housing protections, which would have suspended evictions until 2030, were made in response to public outrage over the eviction last month of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid. Mr. Sánchez’ minority coalition government lacked enough lawmakers to pass it on its own. By going to the polls over the issue, Mr. Sánchez hoped to give left-wing Spaniards a reason to return him power, this time with a majority.
Mr. Sánchez, who is trailing in the polls, said Spaniards must now choose between joining “that far-right wave that brings regression wherever it governs” or keeping Spain as “a bastion of openness, social justice and environmental responsibility.”
On Tuesday, he fueled that narrative by announcing plans to push through the housing measures — including restrictions on evictions and a rent freeze — while Parliament breaks for the election.
The call for new elections adds to a period of destabilization in Europe, with students protesting poor school conditions in France, an industrial downturn and a far-right party surge in Germany, and inflation going up seemingly everywhere. Across the continent, governments are struggling to find ways to sustain a welfare model that guarantees free health care and generous pensions even as populations shrink, industry declines and debt interest payments spike. Frustration with a lack of solutions has helped fuel the rise of hard-right parties who have capitalized on the discontent.
Mr. Sánchez has portrayed his government as a last holdout against those far-right forces. His vision for a big government that favors generous social benefits, civil rights protections and increased immigration is increasingly fading from the European landscape. He hopes that Spaniards will see the election as an emblematic fork in the road with significance beyond its borders.
Mr. Sánchez has some data to bolster his position. Under his government, the Spanish economy in recent years has emerged as one of the European Union’s fastest-growing, at times accounting for a large chunk of the bloc’s total growth. Tax revenue has shot up, the nation’s coffers have filled up and unemployment has shrunk. Renewable energy now powers much of the electricity in Spain, and the minimum wage has increased. Spain even won the World Cup.
The country’s main conservative opposition party, the Popular Party, argues that Mr. Sánchez’ record is much more mixed and aims to make the coming election a referendum on Mr. Sánchez himself.
His critics have seized on a raft of corruption cases including his closest advisers in the Socialist Party, his wife and his brother — which they deny — to paint a picture of a crooked regime that is abusing its power. They point out that his minority coalition, lacking enough votes in Parliament, has failed to pass a national budget for three years, something Mr. Sánchez once said no legitimate government should do. All that has polarized Spain and made the Spanish right deeply motivated to vote him out of office.
“Finally, Spain will speak its mind,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party, said at a news briefing on Monday.
But the Popular Party lacks enough support to govern on its own, and may need to team up with the far-right Vox party to take power. Support for Vox has surged in recent years, especially amid rising concerns over migration since the crisis in Ceuta.
In some ways, the louder Vox is, the easier it is for Mr. Sánchez to terrify his liberal base, as well as the polarized country’s moderate voters, into rallying to his side.
But analysts said Mr. Sánchez’ tactic of creating a juxtaposition between himself and right-wing boogeymen had lost its power.
It was the housing issue, experts said, that gave Mr. Sánchez yet another escape route, in part by helping him re-energize what experts estimate are the roughly 1.4 million left-wing voters who had become more likely to skip the next election.
“The clear aim of the campaign will be to mobilize those voters,” said Pablo Simón, a professor of political science at Carlos III University in Madrid.
Carlos Barragán contributed reporting from Madrid.
The post An 87-Year-Old’s Eviction Dragged Down Spain’s Leader. Will It Also Save Him? appeared first on New York Times.
