Spain's Sánchez to decide this weekend whether to call early elections

Sánchez mulls an early vote as he clears his schedule

Why would a prime minister whom nobody can force call early elections? The question has been circulating all day on Spanish news sites and has stopped sounding like a corridor rumor: Pedro Sánchez's closest circle is debating calling a general election before Christmas. It is not speculation, it is information, insist those close to him. Several ministers are pushing for it in public: at "99%", they say, the decision must be an early vote.

What has changed to trigger talk of early elections

Sánchez has cancelled an interview scheduled for the afternoon and emptied his diary. That gesture is worth three press conferences. The calculation doing the rounds in the forums is about the agenda: a few days of street protests would shift the focus away from awkward issues and return the prime minister to the only role he feels comfortable in, that of candidate. It is what has been doing the rounds in the rumor mills since first thing in the morning.

The protest camp, moreover, would not be endless. It could hold out until the end of November without a problem, just enough for the early vote to have a cover story and a narrative. After that, every extra day in power becomes a victory in itself: there is no legal mechanism forcing him to call an election, so the calendar is decided by whoever occupies the chair.

The housing decree is voted on Friday and the unions are considering a strike

Sánchez himself has appealed to the parliamentary groups with a now classic dilemma: "This Friday the parliamentary groups will have to choose who they protect, the people who live in the houses or those who make a fortune out of them." Some take it for granted that the vote will come with enough opposition to reject it, which would serve up the argument that a different majority is needed to deliver the mission. The unions, meanwhile, are weighing a general strike or a major demonstration if the right wing blocks the decrees.

The mobilizing ingredient has a name in the story doing the rounds: Maricarmen and her housing, paraded as a symbol, although, according to that version, nothing has been done in eight years to resolve her case. The paradox speaks for itself.

The judicial front the early vote would not erase

There is another calendar in motion. The UCO (the Guardia Civil's investigative unit) has travelled to Badajoz, according to a press report, to take statements from the clan that, allegedly, was proposed to act against the judge in a well-known case. These are ongoing proceedings and nothing has been declared proven. Add to that the contents of the prime minister's phone: a pundit claimed on a television program that it will be made public in about three weeks, met with the skepticism of someone who has seen this announcement before and believes nothing will come of it.

The sequence repeats itself: first the rumor, then the trial balloon, then the weekend when the decision is made. If on Friday nobody convinces anybody, there is always the option of announcing that the decision will be taken a few days later. Déjà vu.

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