The spokesperson for Más Madrid in the Assembly, Manuela Bergerot, responded this Thursday to the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, with a reproach that connects the controversy of her "penthouse" with the housing protest installed in front of her office. The eviction of Maricarmen, 87, and the Puerta del Sol encampment have been at the center of a confrontation in which Ayuso has accused the left of instrumentalizing the elderly woman.
"You who wanted to see your mother's house from the terrace of your penthouse and now you have to see a housing encampment in front of your office in Puerta del Sol. Blessed youth," Bergerot launched. The leader has vindicated the mobilization of tenants against the regional government's attempts to evict them.
La diferencia entre Ayuso y Maricarmen: una intento comprarse un ático de lujo con el dinero de todos. Otra lleva 70 años pagando religiosamente el alquiler.
— Manuela Bergerot (@manuelabergerot) October 1, 2026
Hoy los fondos buitre tienen más miedo que Maricarmen. pic.twitter.com/0mgLqAzHXx
Bergerot has contrasted the resources allocated to the property with Maricarmen's trajectory as a tenant. She has accused Ayuso of trying to buy herself "a luxury penthouse with other people's money", while the elderly woman, as she recalled, paid rent for 70 years without failing to pay a monthly fee.
The reference points to the Chamberí penthouse acquired by the public company Planifica Madrid for 6.3 million euros. The regional executive justified the operation as a temporary office for the activity of the Presidency during the works of the Real Casa de Correos. After the purchase became known, it announced its sale. Bergerot's accusation questions the destination of these public funds and the explanation offered by the regional government.
The spokesperson also reproached Ayuso for her reaction to the eviction and the celebration of a real estate investment meeting at Ifema. On Monday, the president ironized about the case with the phrase "Let me know from what age I stop paying my landlords". Bergerot reminded her that Maricarmen had continued paying, placing the continuity of her home at the center of the debate.
Ayuso asks to remove the encampment and accuses the left of profiting
Ayuso's response has once again been directed against those protesting. She has accused the left of using Maricarmen as a "lure" to "incite revolution" for "a handful of votes" and has maintained that the encampments were prepared before finding a case with which to promote them. Thus, she has presented a mobilization born after the eviction of an 87-year-old woman as an operation by her political adversaries.
The president has caricatured left-wing leaders as "rebellious young faculty assembly members", with references to canapés, Falcons, and Decathlon tents. She has also mixed the housing debate with accusations about electoral censuses and attacks on judges, and has stated that her adversaries are leading the country to communism.
Ayuso has also assured that, in twelve hours, more than 2,000 rental homes had disappeared from real estate portals in Madrid. She has attributed this withdrawal to the measures of the central government, anticipating that owners will stop offering their homes. Her intervention has turned this prediction into another argument against the decrees that Congress will vote on this Friday.
In parallel, it has announced an administrative litigation appeal with a request for very urgent precautionary measures to demand the immediate dissolution of the encampment. The regional government accuses the Government Delegation of inaction. The delegate, Francisco Martín, maintains that the protest falls within the right to assembly and that actions must comply with the regulatory framework.
Against this demand for eviction, Bergerot has attributed to the perseverance of the Tenants' Union and activists the agreement that will allow Maricarmen to return to her home. The elderly woman remains hospitalized and will be able to return when discharged, after accepting the agreement reached with Urbagestión, owner of the apartment.
The Más Madrid spokesperson has argued that the case demands changes that reach other families. "If the system allows an 87-year-old woman to be evicted after paying rent her entire life, the system is broken," she stated. She has also called for disobeying and modifying legislation that allows parents, mothers, daughters, and grandmothers to be thrown out of their homes.
Bergerot has positioned the measures of the so-called 'Maricarmen decree' as "just a beginning" and has attributed their arrival in Congress to street pressure. The Chamber will vote separately this Friday on the two housing decrees, whose validation depends on the continuity of the measures approved by the Executive.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the left and ladies and gentlemen of the right, tomorrow we have to choose in the Congress of Deputies, tomorrow we will all be exposed," she warned. "You have to choose, either with the vultures or with the people. There is no more."
