Sánchez's Houthis (Fernando Navarro in El Español)

An article by Fernando Navarro published in El Español on 14 October 2026 argues that the left has built an industry of activism funded with public money that operates as a proxy structure for parties such as the Comunes, Sumar and the PSOE. The text traces the origins of the Sindicato de Inquilinas, which organised the encampments at Madrid's Puerta del Sol, and places it with Barcelona's Sindicat de Llogateres.

The concept of proxy war goes back a long way. In a proxy war, one or both sides use third parties to attack the rival without exposing themselves directly. After the Euromaidan protests, Pilingui armed pro-Russian militias in Donetsk and Lugansk and supplied them with tanks and heavy weaponry, destabilising the region years before invading it directly. The war in Yemen, resumed after the 2022 truce, pitted the government side, a proxy of Saudi Arabia, against the Houthis, a proxy of Iran, in a struggle for the hegemony of both regional powers. Iran also maintains other proxy groups with which it harasses Israel, especially Hezbollah and, with a lower degree of dependence, Hamas. The latter case is curious because Hamas is Sunni while Iran is Shia, which shows that in these matters money weighs more than religion.

## From the Sindicat de Llogateres to the Sindicato de Inquilinas

The term proxy is also used in strategic communication, and **Fernando Navarro**'s article applies it to Spanish politics. The Sindicato de Inquilinas organised the encampments at Madrid's Puerta del Sol to defend Maricarmen, evicted by vulture funds and the right. Faced with the housing situation, its spokespeople say that "the street has spoken". The text asks who the street is.

According to the article, the origin of this "spontaneous" movement lies in Barcelona, specifically in the **Sindicat de Llogateres**, a proxy created by **Ada Colau** and the Comunes. The Sindicat is funded through three channels. The first is the Observatori Desca, defined as a "human rights centre and think tank in defence of social rights and ecological justice", a corporate purpose that allows it to receive various subsidies. According to the article, in 2023 it received **600,000 euros** from Ada Colau. The second channel is the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), Spain's platform for people affected by mortgages. The third is the IDRA, the Urban Research Institute of Barcelona.

## The IDRA and the capture of public resources

The **IDRA** is, according to the text, a fundamental piece in the capture of public resources: it has received at least **1.15 million euros** since December 2021, coming from the Government of Spain, the Generalitat de Catalunya and Barcelona City Council. The mechanism is simple. Calls for grants are published whose rules specify that the subsidies will be awarded to "transversal and social and solidarity economy" projects, or to those aimed at "promoting digital entrepreneurship led by women and technological innovation in cooperativism". And there is the IDRA to collect them.

The IDRA fulfils two important functions. The first is providing salaries for political operatives who trinc party instructions without being publicly affiliated with them. It has had two spokespeople of the Sindicat de Llogateres on its payroll, **Jaime Ballester** and **Carme Arcarazo**. The article recalls that this is what **Íñigo Errejón** described in one of his interventions: creating a network to keep living off public money after being ousted from power. The second function is to provide an appearance of scientific backing for the policies their sponsoring parties intend to support.

## The tentacles in Madrid and Sánchez's reaction

The Sindicat de Llogateres is a proxy of the Comunes and cannot operate in a habitat as pogre as Barcelona. So, as an ally of Sumar, it extends a tentacle to Madrid in the form of the Sindicato de Inquilinas. **Yolanda Díaz** welcomes it. There it displaces the proxies of Podemos, which have been losing power. **Irene Montero** went to Sol in person.

The encampment also catches **Pedro Sánchez** off guard, who, according to the article, is poorly served by focusing on housing, because he has spent eight years making things worse. The text describes him as scheming, short-sighted and a cosmic cheek, and argues that he invents the story of the two decrees to try to put himself at the head of the demonstration organised against him. Since he has his own proxies, the trade unions, far better funded than any other organisation —the article states that Sánchez has quadrupled the contributions he grants them with public money—, he activates them. Having disappeared for eight years while purchasing power shrank and housing prices rose, they suddenly announce a general strike. Against the opposition, **María Jesús Montero** clarifies. And the article concludes that she is right.