The eviction of an 87-year-old woman has turned anger over rents that have nearly doubled in ten years into a threat to Pedro Sánchez's minority government.
Demonstrators are set to march in more than 50 Spanish cities on Saturday, a day after parliament voted down two government decrees meant to give tenants stronger protection.
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The Tenants' Union, which has been coordinating the protests, called the demonstrations. "There is an irreparable disconnect between what the people want and what the parties vote for," it said in a statement.
In Madrid, marchers are due to leave from several points around the city at noon and converge on Plaza de Cibeles in the centre. Activists have already been camped for about a week in Puerta del Sol, one of the capital's main tourist squares.
The anger was triggered by the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, who was carried out on a stretcher from the Madrid flat where she had lived for around seven decades. Housing campaigners say an investment company had bought the property and sought to raise her rent by 275 percent. After the backlash, the new owners agreed to let her return at a low rent.
Calls for a general election
The government drew up its measures in response to the nationwide protests that followed. The package rejected on Friday would have renewed rental contracts automatically when they expired and restricted evictions of vulnerable tenants. It also took aim at so-called vulture funds, investment firms that buy properties cheaply in pursuit of higher returns.
The decrees needed the votes of the Catalan separatist party Junts, which opposed them on the grounds that they lacked rigour.
The defeat is a further setback for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. It has revived doubts over whether his minority government can last until the next scheduled general election in 2027.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), the main opposition, urged Sánchez after the vote to "call elections as soon as possible". After eight years in power, he said, the prime minister had the backing of "neither the streets nor parliament". Recent opinion polls have generally put the PP ahead of the Socialists.
Housing has been a leading concern for Spaniards for years, with supply falling short of demand and costs soaring, as they have elsewhere in the European Union. Average rents have almost doubled over the past decade and asking prices for homes are up about 90 percent, according to the real estate website Idealista.