The PSOE redirects the campaign towards things to eat. The example of the progressive victories in the United States and Brazil has not dominated Pedro Sánchez's speech in Bilbao in his third consecutive rally after the suspension of the pre-campaign due to the Urda train accident. On the other hand, the President of the Government has once again focused on the management of public services and the defense of social well-being. It has done so by associating the PP and Vox with a setback in rights and future cuts, influencing measures already announced during the week, such as the increase in the minimum wage (SMI) without the need for prior approval from the employers - as the PP says - and with very specific commitments, such as the shielding of pensions in the Constitution and their revaluation in accordance with the CPI. Although all of this will depend on the majorities in the Cortes Generales after 29-N, the promise has served Sánchez to attack the PP and Vox for the doubts they have raised about the current model. “We are going to demand it from all parliamentary groups, so that no one plays with the future of pensions again,” said the socialist candidate before 2,800 militants and sympathizers at the Euskalduna Palace in Bilbao, this Sunday. About 300 people stayed outside after the capacity was reached and followed it on screens.
Coincidences do not exist in politics and the umpteenth proof is the election of Sánchez from the Basque Country to wink at the pensioners. This electorate, of about 10 million people who do not need to be mobilized and who remain faithful to the bipartisan system, explains the persistence of the attacks on the PP on a very sensitive issue that has already penalized Feijóo in the final stretch of the 2023 legislative elections. The president has valued the mobilization of retirees who continue to demonstrate every Sunday in Euskadi "for decent pensions." “What was most exciting about these demonstrations is, above all, that they were not demonstrating not for their pensions, but for the pensions of tomorrow, those of their sons and daughters, their grandsons and granddaughters,” he stressed, thus putting the focus once again on the sustainability of the current pension system that the PP has come to question. Its parliamentary spokesperson, Ester Muñoz, said that it was going to “hit the ground running,” while Vox promotes its privatization.
Feijóo affirms that, if he governs, he will update pensions according to the CPI. However, Vox, its potential partner in La Moncloa, does not commit to doing so and proposes a mixed system. That is, privatizations. Sánchez recalled that Vox used as an example the president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, dismissed and arrested for alleged corruption, after the financial fraud of Banco Ueno, which has left almost three million people, 60% of the country's adult population, without savings. "He put the pensions in the hands of the bank of which he was a shareholder and today he is in jail. That is the example of privatization and the model of the public pension system, or rather privatized, that Vox wants," observed the PSOE candidate, who has not limited his messages to retirees. He has also reiterated that he will protect the right to abortion, with the aim of activating the female vote, which was decisive three years ago in revalidating his Government. Feijóo wants to review this law for cases of minors aged 16 and 17, who would have to inform their parents before terminating their pregnancy. While teenagers have Vox as their first choice, the PSOE remains the most attractive force among young women.
The president has also exploited other commitments of the opposition leader, such as increases in the minimum wage with the approval of the employers. The Ministry of Labor has decided to increase it by 5.3% by 2027, up to 1,286 gross euros per month in 14 payments and 18,004 euros annually. It would be a monthly increase of 65 euros compared to the current 1,221 euros. "They only listen to the big businessmen, those who earn more than 400,000 euros, and who are bothered by workers' minimum wage being raised. Well, as long as I govern, we are going to raise the interprofessional minimum wage every year," Sánchez highlighted.
Along these lines, the general secretary of the Socialist Party of Euskadi, Eneko Andueza, has focused on some of the statements that Feijóo has made to “translate” them into what, in the opinion of the socialists, those words hide: a reduction in rights. "Feijóo says: 'How is it possible that the majority of sick leave is on a Friday or a Monday?'. Translation: you workers are idiots and you don't even have the right to get sick. He says: 'We are going to reopen the euthanasia debate.' Translation: he doesn't want anyone to have the right to have a dignified death. Another: 'The pension system is going to fail because it is unsustainable.' They are going to empty the pension fund again. They want poor pensioners. And the last thing: they are going to ask you for sacrifices and you already know who pays it: all of you to benefit a few,” Andueza hammered.
Housing as the axis
The socialists intend that housing be another of the axes of the campaign. The Permanent Deputation of Congress will approve this Thursday the decrees in which the Government recovered some of the main measures that reflected social indignation over the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, such as the anti-eviction shield and rent caps, which the PP, Vox and Junts overthrew in Parliament. In an interview in EL PAÍS, Feijóo affirms that he will repeal them because “they harm tenants and owners.” Sánchez has taken advantage of this opportunity to ask progressives to go on November 29 to “vote en masse” and “democracy wins over involution.” “If you want us to go further and sooner in social achievements, especially in terms of housing, I am not asking for a simple majority, I am asking for a broad and progressive majority in the next Parliament,” he stated. His start to the campaign will take him, barring last-minute changes, to Seville on Thursday, to Extremadura on Friday - initially in Cáceres -, to Palma de Mallorca on Saturday, and to Madrid on Sunday, probably in Alcorcón.
Beyond the differences in programs, Sánchez has also emphasized the international and domestic alliances of the right. His conclusion is that Feijóo “insults intelligence” after stating in this newspaper that it is not up to him whether he has to govern with Santiago Abascal. That is the majority that all survey houses detect. "Today I read in EL PAÍS that Feijóo says that a coalition with Vox will not depend on him. But you are asking for the vote in Guipúzkoa, in Girona and in Tarragona for Vox! But what an insult to the intelligence of the people, man!", he said in reference to the coordination of both formations in certain provinces to compete with a joint formula for the Senate.
The PP's pact with Vox in the upper house to counteract the PSOE coalition with the Frente Amplio has also been the target of attacks by the socialists. There is another chapter with a strong symbolic value. The PP has agreed not to present candidates for the Senate in Girona, Tarragona and Gipuzkoa and to urge its voters to vote for Vox candidates in two historic communities with nationalist parties that compete for the conservative electorate, such as the PNV and Junts, and where the Spanish right has traditionally had poor results. The general secretary of the PP, Miguel Tellado, has demanded the vote for the extreme right in the upper house in those provinces. "We ask people not to vote for the PSOE. We ask people to vote for Vox, of course they do," he said on Tuesday. "With Tellado you don't need an interpreter. He tells you directly. But in case anyone is confused, when they tell you that, they mean that voting for the PP is voting for the extreme right. It is opening the doors for them to enter the Government of Spain," Andueza criticized.
The general secretary of the PSOE has even doubted the autonomy that a coalition Executive of the PP and Vox would have in the face of Donald Trump and his demands to increase military spending to 5% of GDP. An increase that would cost 50,000 million euros more each year, which would have to come from more taxes or cuts to the Welfare State. "They are brave, that is why Feijóo does not go to public television to be asked about pensions. And that is why Abascal, if he goes to Broncano - he is scheduled to attend La revuelta this Monday -, it is with an audience that he decides. Are these people going to dare to say no to Trump to 5% of the Gross Domestic Product if they govern?" Sánchez reasoned. And he continued: "These accept everything, with the 5%, with the war in Iran, with the genocide in Gaza, with anything. That is why on November 29 we have to vote strongly to have a brave government that defends the interests of Spain. To tell those who believe they are sheriff of the world that what happens in Spain is decided in Spain and that it is not decided in Washington, nor in Tel Aviv, nor in Buenos Aires, nor in Moscow. Spain is a sovereign country and it does not It is going to be the backyard of no far-right international,” he remarked.
At the rally, none of the participants referred to the Urda railway tragedy. Nor to Óscar Puente, who with his resignation as Minister of Transport has made the PSOE redirect the campaign by using him as an example against the defense that the PP made, for example, of Carlos Mazón, whom it supported for more than a year as president of the Valencian Community until the relatives of the 234 who died in the 2024 dana forced his fall.
True to custom, Patxi López brought the attendees to their feet with a heartfelt speech, in which he reviewed the pressure that the PSOE has suffered since Sánchez became president. "We have been surrounded by propagators of hate. They have attacked us by land, sea and air with bad tricks. They believed that they had already defeated us and we were not going to get up. That we were defeated... They did not seek to win us, they sought to destroy us. We socialists have had an enemy, the terrorist group ETA. We did not give up, we beat them, and we are going to win again over the propagators of hate!", he stated.
The socialist spokesperson in Congress and remembered as the lehendakari when ETA announced its surrender in 2011, has given “thanks as enormous as Bilbao” to Sánchez. "You have been governing for eight years and from minute one they have gone after you. With everything we have endured, they have attacked us, insulted us, even attacked us, but especially you, your family, Begoña, your closest core, and you have not stopped working for this country for a single day, confronting the powerful, the satraps, the warlords and the techno-oligarchs," López said before an audience that, despite the polls, believe in a new comeback.
