🇪🇸 Spain's prime minister dissolves parliament, snap elections set for November 29 Spanish Prime Mini

🇪🇸 Spain's prime minister dissolves parliament, snap elections set for November 29

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced the dissolution of parliament and called early general elections for November 29. The current term was due to run until 2027.

The country is in the grip of mass protests over the housing crisis. The spark was the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from the Madrid apartment where she had lived for around 70 years. She was carried out on a stretcher after an investment firm bought the property and sought to raise her rent by 275%.

Context: The eviction set off protests across Spain and a protest camp in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. The government responded with two emergency decrees, one strengthening protection against evictions and one automatically extending rental contracts. On Friday, parliament rejected both, the first by 178 votes to 172, with the conservative People's Party, the right-wing Vox and the Catalan separatist Junts voting against.

Sánchez leads a minority government, and the defeat left him unable to pass his agenda. Rents in Spain have almost doubled in a decade, and the tenants' union leading the protests is now calling for a general strike.

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