Sánchez considers bringing forward elections following rejection of housing decrees

The protesters wanted to see the approval of the royal decree-laws on housing that the Cabinet passed on Tuesday in response to the impact caused by the eviction of the elderly Maricarmen Abascal .

As announced on Thursday night in a statement by the party leadership and confirmed from the floor of Congreso by its spokesperson, Míriam Nogueras, the Catalan party opted to repeal legislation that had already come into force.

With centre-right and hard-right parties such as PP and Vox voting against, the government needed the votes from Junts MPs to approve the decrees.

Not even the suspicion that Pedro Sánchez might want to seize the moment to call an election - as suggested to him by ministers and PSOE leaders - made the party changed its mind. “We are going to defend the truth, whatever the cost,” said the MP and the party’s vice-president.

Nogueras argued that the package of measures approved by the government will allow vulture funds to continue buying up homes and people to continue being evicted; she maintained that, in the mere 48 hours since it came into force, it has already led to more than 4,000 homes being withdrawn from the market and shifts the cost of protecting vulnerable families onto other families - that is, small property owners.

The government maintains that the legislation specifically provides, at the request of Junts, that public authorities must compensate landlords who are private individuals when an eviction is suspended due to a lack of alternative accommodation.

The Minister for Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, even assured them that she had incorporated 90 per cent of their proposals and offered to process the texts as draft bills so that they could be amended. “There is still time. You are nothing like this right and far-right, who know they want to destroy you,” she pleaded in vain.

The final decision by Carles Puigdemont’s party now opens up a new scenario. This is not just another one of his manoeuvres. For the first time, there is already talk within the PSOE ranks of not seeing out the parliamentary term, which comes to an end next year.

“I don’t know the date, but if the decrees are overturned, we’ll be heading for an election, without a doubt,” one minister even stated in private before the vote was finalised.

Within the Socialist ranks, they believe that what has happened creates “an opportunity” to steer the debate onto ground that may work in their favour, following two months of immense strain caused by the handling of the Ceuta border crisis.

They see this as opening up some options for them against a PP and Vox that remain unbeatable in the polls. “The vote is positional. If the vote is on a social issue, the left has a mobilising advantage; if it is framed in terms of sovereignty - which is what the Ceuta crisis could provoke - then the right has the upper hand,” notes a source close to the prime minister.

Not everyone in the party is so sure about this. The president of Castilla-La Mancha, the outspoken Socialist Emiliano García-Page, did argue that the situation is heading towards an election, but he cast doubt on whether the PSOE could go to the polls with a winning message.

“When pacts are made by setting aside your values and principles, and you enter into them with the far right – which, moreover, wants to tear Spain apart – they cause headaches, to say the least. And in this case, I don’t think anyone would be surprised to realise that Junts was not, in fact, a progressive bloc, nor was it a progressive majority at all,” he criticised.

In the prime minister's office at Moncloa, however, as early as last week they were convinced that rushing to pass the decree on Tuesday – which the minister for housing had been trying unsuccessfully to push through for months – was a sure-fire success, even if what has ultimately happened were to occur.

Until the protests in support of Maricarmen took place, Isabel Rodríguez had been resisting the pressure from Sumar to resubmit a bill to parliament that would suspend evictions and mandate the extension of tenancy agreements without having the necessary votes secured.

She argued that this would raise false hopes among the public. But the situation changed overnight. “This allows us to say to the electorate: ‘Listen, vote for me because I do implement these policies and I need a parliamentary majority to be able to do so’,” insist sources within the government.

No one is venturing to predict when Sánchez will make the announcement should he decide to call a snap election. Some sources suggest he will wait until after the weekend to gauge public sentiment and will make an announcement on Monday.

If he were to sign the decree dissolving parliament that same day, the elections would be held on 29 November. But there are even those who suggest giving Junts another chance first and re-approving the royal decree-law containing the measures from the main of the two texts voted on today (the one that only includes the conversion of tenancy agreements into open-ended contracts – a commitment demanded by Sumar, which was not supported by either the PNV or Coalición Canaria) before pressing the button.

Sources at Moncloa are taking nothing for granted. “What has happened is very serious. Over the coming hours and days, we will be analysing the consequences,” they say.

In any case, the prime minister himself fuelled the notion that a decision had already been taken when, unexpectedly and just before the vote was due to begin, he asked to take the floor to make a final appeal to the parliamentary groups voting ‘no’ - specifically, the PP and Junts (he said nothing about Vox), arguing that the measures that had been rejected did not involve "extremism" but rather "months of technical analysis and negotiation" and the desire to "bring order and humanity to a market which, if we do not control it, will end up destroying our society". "I ask you to rise to the occasion. History will judge you sooner than you think, and more harshly," he warned.

It wasn’t just his. All the speeches in the chamber on Friday had a distinct campaign feel to them. This was also true of the speech by the PP’s economic spokesperson, Juan Bravo, who, when it was his turn, went so far as to appeal directly "to the thirty-something who is still sleeping in the same bunk bed as ten years ago", to the "couple who have been debating whether to pay off their flat or have a child" and to "parents who would like to do their utmost to provide their children with a flat".

"We are aware of the sacrifice being made by this generation who have put their lives on hold, and we won’t deceive you: it won’t be easy or quick, but the day will come - and it isn’t that far off -when you’ll put a key in the lock and say, ‘I’m home at last’. We won’t let you down,” he said.