Spain. Sánchez promises social advances, Feijóo talks about reconstruction

O socialist Pedro Sánchez today asked for the vote in the 29th November elections in Spain for the country to have “four more years of social progress”, while conservative Alberto Núñez Feijóo promised “a national reconstruction project” to win.

Sánchez, who leads the current government and the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), and Feijóo, who leads the opposition and the People's Party (PP, right), dispute the position of Prime Minister in the early Spanish legislative of November and today held the first campaign rallies.

The leader of the PSOE, Prime Minister eight years ago and currently without an absolute majority in parliament, claimed, at a rally in Dos Hermanas, Seville, the “social achievements” of the executives he led, in areas such as the increase in minimum wage, gender equality laws or those that reduced labor precariousness, as well as the international positions of “defense of peace” or “denunciation of genocide” in Gaza.

Sánchez also focused on the housing crisis, which has led thousands of people to the streets in Spain in the last three weeks and precipitated the fall of the government and the call for elections, after the parliament had ‘sucked’ measures presented by the executive with the vote of right-wing and far-right parties, including that of the PP.

The leader of the PSOE promised that if he is elected again he will “strengthen and maintain” these measures, which he said protect at the same time small owners and tenants, and argued that only with a “wide majority and progressive in parliament” will it be possible to win “the struggle for housing” and have “four more years of social progress” in Spain.

The opposition leader, in turn, claimed, at a rally in Madrid, his experience of governance, ahead of Galicia’s regional executive between 2009 and 2022, and promised a “national reconstruction project” after eight years of Sánchez’ socialist governments with, defended, “false promises for housing”, corruption and disrespect for institutions and the separation of powers.

“ I know what it is to govern and I know what it costs,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, for the audience of hundreds of people gathered in a Madrid auditorium where two former Spanish prime ministers of the PP, José Maria Aznar and Mariano Rajoy were.

Marking the differences he considers to have in relation to Sánchez, the PP leader stressed “the honesty of the teams” that he always had in Galicia’s governments or that he always presented and executed the budgets correctly, in an allusion to which in the last legislature, initiated in 2023, the national PSOE executive and leftist platform Somar did not submit a single proposal and state budget to parliament.

“ Spain needs guidance and this requires more than replacing one government with another; it requires reviewing the rules, recovering the balances, strengthening the institutions and returning to the Spaniards the certainty that the State is at the service of all," said Feijóo, who promised a “national reconstruction project”, with “order, security and prosperity”, if he reaches Prime Minister.

“ We will rebuild our security so that the borders are respected and so that the laws are enforced”, he added, in a reference to what happened in Ceuta in July, when more than 70,000 people entered the city illegally in 24 hours.

Housing, on the one hand, and Ceuta, immigration and border control, on the other, are the themes which predictably mark the pre-campaign and the campaign of Spanish legislative, taking into account the speeches of the political leaders following the call for elections last Monday.

The most recent polls give victory in the November 29 elections to the PP, but without an absolute majority, which would reach an alliance with the Vox (extreme right). The two parties have assumed that they will collide to remove the PSOE and the left of the Spanish Government.