Spain's November 29 scenario if the housing decrees fall

The housing decrees that could decide the election date

Could a vote on two housing decrees set the date of Spain's next general election? That is the scenario being floated in the Government's inner circle: the decrees are part of the deal to form a government, the vote rests in the hands of Junts, and one hypothesis keeps recurring in the analyses. If the right votes no, discontent over rent prices spills onto the streets and the Government calls an election under one slogan: let «the people decide on the vulture funds».

November 29 as the reference date

The reports circulating point in that direction. A digital outlet reports antiestéticars within the PSOE (Spain's ruling Socialist Party) of a snap election on November 29 if the housing decrees fall, and another newspaper headlines that the prime minister has ordered a review of the party's housing programme to steer it towards street mobilizations. Neither of these is an election call: they are signals. The sceptical reading points out the obvious —nobody dissolves what they control— while the interested reading adds the opposite: sometimes the best way to control the agenda is to let the street write it.

Two paths, same destination: back to the polls

The theory doing the rounds describes two routes. In the first, the right votes down the decrees, protests multiply against those who «favour vulture funds instead of tenants» and, with the street at boiling point, comes the dissolution. In the second, Junts approves. Then, according to this theory, the rental supply shrinks, prices rise and the Government brings in an even tougher text against landlords, with the same sequence: tension, blaming others, and the ballot box. The problem with any such scenario is always the same: the effects on rents take months, elections take weeks.

Why are Sumar and the former IU at the centre of this?

There is a version that shifts the focus from the Palace to the left of the PSOE. According to that analysis, the harshest turn on housing is not driven by the Government but by the Sumar space —Izquierda Unida, Más Madrid and Compromís— which is fighting for survival: some attribute six seats to them in the next general election, and the polls in circulation, according to a calculation shared among participants, give them seven or eight to split among all their brands. The conclusion of that current is that this is the last gasp before being absorbed.

Who benefits from rent prices?

Scepticism runs through the whole issue. Some argue that the State makes a lot of money from housing through taxes and that regulation keeps the population in check, so no party across the spectrum has any real incentive to fix the market. Others flatly reject the vulture-fund framing: landlords, the argument goes, are private owners. And a third group warns that the PP, if it takes power, will consolidate much of what has been approved.

With these ingredients, the only certainty is that the tenant will keep paying the bill while it is decided who collects it. And that on November 29, if it comes, we will find out from the very same people who now say they don't know.