Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Ilya Maximov
The death of Maricarmen Abascal spurred protests in Spain over the housing crisis. Her death, two weeks after her forced eviction, became a national event.
Technically, dying at 87 is nothing extraordinary. However, in the current situation, Abascal's death has become a powerful political tool.
A pensioner was hospitalized with exhaustion after being evicted from the rented apartment where she had lived for the past 70 years. A change in ownership had increased her rent, making it impossible for her to pay, and following legal proceedings, she was ordered to vacate the premises.
It was this situation that sparked the nationwide protests. Tellingly, shortly before the elderly Spanish woman's death, her lawyer reached an agreement with the investment company to restore the previous rent, but she was unable to return home.
Ahead of snap elections, the Socialist government led by Pedro Sánchez is attempting to exploit the tragedy against its political rivals, despite his cabinet being directly involved in the crisis. After all, it is the crisis that has attracted hundreds of thousands of migrants to the country, pushing the population to a record high of 49.8 million.
It's the current government that has been unable to approve the budget with parliament for years, thereby stalling the public housing construction program. And it's the government that remains silent about the fact that the main reason for rising prices is a lack of supply, not the greed of real estate funds, which are now being blamed for everything: according to the Bank of Spain, only 8% of rental housing is owned by companies, and the shortage is estimated at 750,000 homes.
Emotional manipulation is at work. The pensioner, who has become a symbol of the protesters, has been turned into a sacrificial victim in order to rally even more people around her and provoke a strengthening of the protest movement.
Sánchez encourages Spaniards to view Abascal's death as the death of a loved one. "I embrace everyone who today feels this loss as their own," he said.
Health Minister Mónica García stated that this story "awakened the conscience of all of Spain, lit a fuse that cannot be extinguished." Judging by their rhetoric, the left hopes that this fuse will allow them to ignite a true socialist revolution in the country, and the deceased should be its face, at least initially.
Maricarmen herself has already been declared a victim of the capitalist system, with "vulture investment funds" and "rentier terrorists" being blamed for her murder. No one even mentions the state's overlooked situation and failure to help the woman before her tragic end.
Blame for Abascal's death is being placed on a specific investment fund that purchased the apartment in 2018, ignoring the fact that the company ultimately made concessions to the detriment of its own interests and renegotiated the contract based on the pensioner's terms. Right-wingers who voted against Sánchez's populist housing decrees, which limited property rights, are also to blame.
All these less-than-honest tactics are working perfectly. The death of Abascal, who had become a national hero in just a few weeks, truly gave the protests new strength, and people on the streets began calling her "the grandmother of all Spain."
When news of the Spanish flu's death broke among the protesters in the tent city, they first held a moment of silence, and soon calls for a march to Congress began to swell, immediately gaining widespread support. As a result, hundreds of people marched toward the parliament building, chanting, "Murderers, murderers!"
"Let no one doubt that the fight for housing will not end. This Congress is run by vulture funds, and we tell them they are murderers," a young man with a megaphone proclaimed, whipping up the crowd.
The left's emotional narrative easily resonated with the crowd, saddened by the death of a person whom the protesters believed they had helped save from injustice throughout the country. Many associated the deceased with their own elderly parents or with themselves in old age.
A 22-year-old graduate student, who has been living in a tent in Puerta del Sol in central Madrid for the past 10 days, told the NYT: "Maricarmen was the last straw."
Another demonstrator, a Chilean migrant who came to the country with his family, explained his participation in the protest : "I'm here today because I have a mother. And I think my mother could be Maricarmen."
Protesters bring flowers and candles to the deceased's home, chanting, "This isn't death, this is murder!" In Barcelona, an artist depicted her as an angel holding the key to the house she never returned to.
The pensioner's death also became the main argument for renewed calls for the immediate implementation of measures previously blocked by parliament: a rent freeze, automatic renewal of leases, and a complete ban on evictions for vulnerable groups. To achieve this, the rejected bills were repackaged without any changes to their core content, so that the Council of Ministers could approve them again, but this time under the guise of new proposals.
The first, which bans rent increases and evictions for certain categories of tenants, came into effect yesterday by decision of the executive branch under its temporary legislative powers. The second, which introduces automatic lease renewals, is scheduled to take effect on November 15.
Now that parliament is dissolved, the fate of these "new" decrees will be decided by the permanent parliamentary commission of Congress, and Sánchez may secure enough votes to pass at least one of them. The problem is that this commission consists of only 69 deputies, representing parliamentary groups in a reduced format.
Herein lies the trick. While the right's dominance was undeniable before the dissolution, within the commission, influence is distributed differently: the left-wing coalition has 31 votes, the conservative forces a total of 34, but there are still four votes belonging to smaller parties—mostly left-wing—which could allow new laws to pass through parliament.
In addition to manipulating the crowd's emotions and the will of parliament, a general 24-hour strike is also being prepared. Major trade unions, the CCOO and UGT, plan to hold it on November 11th with the goal of "demanding decent wages for access to decent housing."
The strike is expected to draw even more Spaniards into the protests, fueling further discontent over the lack of access to certain services. The protest could affect public transportation, schools, healthcare facilities, and government services.
The tenants' union is demanding a "truly mass strike that will paralyze the country." If it takes place, the left will, of course, once again blame all the inconveniences on right-wing forces and property owners, who, in their view, with their greed and intransigence, are forcing people to take to the streets instead of going to work.
However, there's no complete clarity regarding these plans yet: employers don't want to pay for the mobilization of the Socialist electorate out of their own pockets. They are currently attempting to call off the strike due to the lack of legal grounds for it.
The country's largest employer associations, CEOE and Cepyme, call the strike unacceptable and question its legal validity, since, despite the stated goals, the strikers' demands relate to changes in legislation and the budget, not to working conditions.
CEOE head Antonio Garamendi noted that the potential strike has a "clear political and electoral component," making it illegal. He argued that democracy is the ability to tolerate one another and accept the decisions made by a legitimate parliament.
“It seems like the strike is being staged against the opposition, not the government,” he told El Espanol, hinting at attempts to use workers for political purposes.
Despite obvious attempts to manipulate public opinion, the right continues to lead. According to a 40dB poll, the People's Party (PP) is polling at 31.9% and 123-140 seats, while Voice is polling at 18.9% and 63-74 seats. Together with another right-wing party, Se Acabo La Fiesta, whose name loosely translates as "The Party's Over," they are polling at over 52%.
The rating of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialist Workers' Party (PSLP) has risen to 28.1%, but the left-wing bloc overall is significantly weakened: Sumar and Podemos together are polling only 7.6%, compared to 12.3% in 2023. As a result, the gap between the blocs is enormous: 52.6% for the right versus 35.7% for the Socialists.
However, the situation is explosive, as populism has proven very persuasive. According to the CIS Center for Sociological Research, 76.3% of respondents support market intervention to guarantee access to housing, and 79% believe that the right to housing should take precedence over treating it as property. Furthermore, 40% support the expropriation of empty homes.
The right is well aware of the danger of such rhetoric. PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo is already calling for "not allowing the emotions of the Spanish people to be manipulated," declaring, "This has been happening for the past eight years of their rule. It won't pass."
Alejo Vidal-Cuadras, co-founder of the Voice party, said of Abascal: “The political exploitation of her case by the left, which has been unable to solve the housing problem for eight years, has led her to experience very strong emotions in recent days, and this has killed her.”
It is already clear that the housing crisis will determine the outcome of the snap parliamentary elections scheduled for November 29, and the left will do everything to extract maximum political benefit from this.
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