Over the next couple of months, you'll hear a lot about Pedro Sánchez. On October 5, prompted by his failure to secure parliamentary support for measures addressing Spain's housing crisis, the country's Socialist prime minister called a general election for November 29, several months ahead of schedule. Sánchez seeks a proper mandate for his minority coalition and hopes to get more Socialists elected by capitalizing on public anger over the housing situation. But polls currently put the Conservative Popular Party (PP) first with 34% of the vote, followed by the Socialists with 26%. To govern, the PP would need the support of Vox (a center-right party that has already partnered with the Conservatives in several regional administrations), which is expected to come in third with around 18%.

Public anger over Spain's housing crisis flared up last month, when an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her Madrid flat because she couldn't afford a rent increase (she has since died). The Spanish right's rejection of the measures Sánchez hastily prepared in response—including a ban on evictions until 2030, higher taxes on tourist flats, and restrictions on private investment firms active in the residential sector—fueled this outrage. Sánchez hopes to pass a modified version of the emergency package through a reduced parliament before the election; but even if he does, he won't solve Spain's housing problems.

The emergency measures are exactly that: short-term holdovers that fail to address the fundamental structural issues. Spain is running a deficit of around 700,000 homes, which has caused rental rates to double and house prices to rise by 44% since 2020. In a report published last November, the Bank of Spain identified historically sluggish construction as a key factor in the deficit. One conclusion to draw is that Sánchez has not done enough to stimulate activity in the construction industry. As one PP minister said: "Housing doesn't become more affordable through decrees; it becomes more affordable by building more homes."

This snap election seems premised on the belief that voters have extremely selective or short-term memories (which might well be true). Sánchez has had almost a decade to tackle the housing situation, during which period it has only worsened. But now he's hoping that the only thing voters will remember is the Spanish right (in conjunction with the Vox, labeled by the Socialists as "far right") blocking his last-ditch attempt at a solution. It's a risky move, but Sánchez is often described as a consummate political gambler. This is the third snap election he's called since coming to power in 2018. (The others were in April 2019 and July 2023. The repeat vote held in November 2019 was triggered automatically by parliamentary deadlock.)

Between now and November 29, there will be widespread speculation about whether the "Houdini" of Spanish politics, as Sánchez is sometimes called, can extricate himself from another tight spot; and there will be hand-wringing editorials in the center-left press about the potential demise of Europe's only "progressive" leader and the deterioration of European democracy. All of which misses the point—because Sánchez himself has done a lot to damage Spain's democracy. The key question posed by the snap election is "Why didn't Sánchez call one sooner?" Or, to put it the other way around: "Why is he still in power?"

Sánchez took office in June 2018 by winning a no-confidence vote against his Conservative predecessor, Mariano Rajoy. In the run-up to the vote, Sánchez applied relentless pressure on Rajoy to step down. His criticism focused on two key issues: legislative impotence, as manifested by Rajoy's inability to pass a budget, and corruption within the PP.