The discontent over housing has been climbing in the barometers for years, accumulating frustration, but it lacked a face, a case capable of becoming a symbol and moving people. It found it in Maricarmen, a woman aged 87 who was evicted last week from the house where she had lived for seven decades. The demonstration last Saturday, called by the Tenant Association, culminated in a camp at Puerta del Sol and four concrete demands: automatic renewal of contracts, a freeze on rents, a law against scams related to seasonal rentals and room rentals, and no eviction without an alternative housing solution. Moncloa understood it could not let this pass. On Sunday, Sánchez addressed Maricarmen to announce that the decree would go to the Council of Ministers and asked the groups for “one final effort” to validate it.
A photo, two strategies
The Monday produced a photo, one not seen in a long time. If press conferences usually take place in Congress or at the party’s headquarters, the one featuring the forces of the alternative left and the plurinational bloc was held at the hospital entrance: Sumar, Podemos, ERC, EH Bildu, and BNG called the media to the Gregorio Marañón, where Maricarmen remains hospitalized. The setting always forms part of the message. On this occasion, even more, as it reminds us that politics arrived late. The image adds another nontrivial element: it brings together government partners, those who left it, and sovereigntists. A photo that that space has been unable to achieve at a negotiation table. Less than a year from the general elections, there is still no brand with which to contest the elections nor a concrete candidate.
“The image adds another not-insignificant element: it brings together government partners, those who left it and sovereigntists”
Beneath the shared frame coexist, moreover, two distinct strategies. Sumar pressures from within the Government, of which it remains a part. Podemos operates from the outside: its four deputies are indispensable for the investiture bloc to add up and approve the Maricarmen decree.
Why housing could lift them up
The alternative left arrived at this political term with low expectations in the opinion polls: demobilized voters and Sumar and Podemos far from 10% each when running separately. It’s not so much that they lack voters, beyond the general fatigue of the progressive space, but that, above all, what was missing was a reason for voters to lean toward them. In that sense, housing offers exactly what they lacked: stimulus and differentiation from the PSOE that would persuade the electorate to lean toward them in a context where the public agenda favors them. It does so through three channels:
The first is differentiation. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda is under the PSOE, and the decree as well. The current context offers the left the only major issue of the legislature in which it can demand more without seeming to attack the progressive bloc, because the demand comes not from the parties, but from the street.
The second is mobilization. The problem for the progressive vote is not a matter of preference but of intensity. In other words, people do not move away to the opponent; they stay at home. A cause with a face, encampments, and an ultimatum with a date is the greatest social shift that has occurred in the political and media agenda throughout the entire legislature.
“The housing offers exactly what it didn’t have: stimulation and differentiation from the PSOE that will lead voters to lean toward them in a context where the public agenda favors them”
The third is the biography. Housing is not a borrowed issue for the space that these political forces compose. PAH, the 15M movement, and the Tenant’s Union are part of their political genealogy. Also among their leaders, starting with Ada Colau, who come from that background. Thus, for the first time in a long while, the alternative left can speak about something in which the electorate recognizes it as a principal actor.
Why it may not be enough
None of this by itself guarantees electoral capital for a political space. A cause is not a project, and housing has, at least, three other relevant elements. First, there is authorship. If the decree passes, the success will belong to the progressive government, not to the alternative left. If it fails, the cost will also be borne by everyone. In neither case does the payoff automatically go to those who stood at the hospital door.
“In neither case does the payoff automatically go to those who stood at the hospital door”
The second element is internal competition. The better the cause plays out politically, the more Sumar and Podemos will contest its banner. In other words, housing unites them in the streets and pits them inside the institutions. For Podemos it is proof that more can be achieved from outside, while for Sumar it is proof that something can be achieved only from within the executive.
The third is precedent. The 15M already showed that mobilization can be transformative, but also that it takes years to find a vehicle. The current mobilization is a success of the Tenant’s Union, which has been careful not to let itself be co-opted by any acronym.
A name, still without a face
The alliance of Sumar, IU, Más Madrid, and Comuns remains officially nameless for 2027, as everything points to it being called Frente Amplio. The housing issue also resolves for them the “what,” which is no small matter for a space that had been without a cause of its own since 2023. But the cause does not solve the current leadership vacuum nor the internal agreements among the different organizations. In that gap Ada Colau has reappeared in recent days, showing willingness to run in the general elections in a truly broad left front. With an explicit condition: that Podemos be inside.
The Monday photo brings closer the possibility that this scenario could become a reality, though it remains far. Podemos alongside Sumar and housing at the center. The ideal terrain for Colau, who forged her biography in the PAH before becoming mayor. Moreover, her figure could help bring Podemos closer to the rest of the forces that ran in 2023 under the Sumar umbrella. The narrative, in this sense, is given to her. If unity occurs, she will be able to say that it was possible; if not, the failure will be of the parties that did not want to participate in the confluence. It also has several limits: her figure is circumscribed by Barcelona, she bears the wear of having already eight years of local government and belongs to a generation that politically seems exhausted. Precisely, this latter contributes to the lack of a credible set of names to lead the political space.
“If unity occurs, she will be able to say that it was possible; if not, the failure will be of the parties that did not want to participate in the confluence”
In any case, the housing issue offers the alternative left a cause and mobilization, and has already produced a photo, which is more than they had a month ago and more than they have had throughout the entire legislature. They still lack the face, the list, and an agreement on who enters and where. The Monday image proves that a broad front is possible on the street. To float, it requires showing that it is also possible on the ballot and the ability to reconnect with a still-fatigued electorate.
