The Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has left this Saturday in the hands of Pedro Sánchez any decision about a possible early election, although she has sent a message of preparation to the progressive space given the possibility that Spaniards may be called to the polls. "The left is absolutely prepared," she assured from San Román de Cervantes (Lugo), a day after the Congress rejected the two housing decrees promoted by the Government.
Díaz took advantage of her speech to call for the mobilization of progressive citizens after the parliamentary defeat of the Executive and after the demonstrations held this Saturday in different parts of Spain to demand solutions to the housing crisis. The vice president asked that Friday's vote not cause discouragement and defended that the response must also continue outside the institutions.
"Yesterday they blocked Parliament, but they did not block democracy," said Díaz, who insisted that social rights require mobilization. "They don't fall from the sky," she recalled, referring to an idea that, as she explained, she has been defending for months.
Her statements come amid uncertainty about the future of the legislature. Sánchez has opened a "period of reflection" after the two royal housing decrees were rejected in Congress and is listening this weekend to his partners and the formations that support the Executive. The decision on a possible electoral call rests exclusively with the president.
Díaz leaves the decision in Sánchez's hands
During her visit to Lugo, where she participated in a dialogue on social economy with film director Oliver Laxe, Díaz explained that she maintains frequent conversations with Sánchez, but she marked a clear difference between that contact and the constitutional power to decide a dissolution of the Cortes.
The vice president pointed out that she speaks with the president "for obvious reasons," but stressed that the decision to call elections is "exclusively" his. In this way, Díaz avoids anticipating what the head of the Executive will do while the Government analyzes the consequences of the parliamentary defeat.
The electoral scenario has been installed in the political debate after PP, Vox and Junts rejected the Executive's two housing decrees. The vote opened the possibility of an early election and led Sánchez to announce a period of analysis to determine if conditions exist to continue with the legislature.
From the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has taken advantage of the parliamentary defeat to demand elections. The president of the PP defended this Saturday that Sánchez should not continue to "feign" a call and affirmed that Spain has "the right to decide now." Feijóo has also placed housing as one of the main arguments against the Government's management.
Díaz, for her part, has chosen to publicly prepare her political space for either of the two scenarios. "The left is absolutely prepared," she assured when asked about the possibility of going to the polls.
The vice president's position also comes as Sumar prepares a meeting for this Sunday in which its main representatives will address precisely the housing situation and the possibility of an early election. The meeting takes place with the space still pending to define who would lead a possible candidacy and with several names on the table.
Calls for mobilization after the failure of the decrees
Beyond the electoral scenario, Díaz has focused a good part of her intervention on the social response to the rejection of housing measures. The vice president has urged progressive citizens not to be "overwhelmed or disappointed" by the vote held on Friday.
Her message comes after a day of housing mobilizations in different Spanish cities. The protests, called by the Tenants' Union, demanded new measures to address rental prices and evictions and also proposed calling a general strike.
Díaz has directly linked the defense of the right to housing with citizen mobilization. "Let people take democracy into their own hands," she demanded, defending that this participation does not have to be limited to the streets, but also extend to other spaces of society.
In this sense, she insisted that "they will not win if people mobilize," both through protests and from schools and other social spheres.
The vice president has also hardened her criticism against those who voted against the decrees. She has directly pointed to the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and the spokesperson for Junts in Congress, Míriam Nogueras.
Díaz has placed them among "those of the policies of suffering and pain" and has stated that "they have no heart." The vice president has linked their parliamentary position with the consequences that, she has argued, the failure of housing measures could have.
"It is an indecency that we are in the hands of vulture funds," she denounced, while demanding that progressive citizens maintain pressure despite the outcome of the vote. The minister had already defended in recent weeks the need to maintain mobilization around housing.
"Let's get going with joy"
Díaz closed her political message with a direct appeal to the left. The vice president asked to abandon discouragement after the parliamentary result and face the new scenario with an attitude of mobilization. "Let's get going with joy, with decency, with the conviction of reason and transmitting that we have a future and that the bad guys will not win," she affirmed.
The vice president has also defended the social economy as a "democratic and future-oriented" formula and has presented it as an engine for generating employment and economic activity in contrast to what she has defined as "the speculative economy we live in today."
During her speech, she linked this model with the development of rural areas and with the capacity of certain cooperative projects to generate economic activity where other initiatives would have greater difficulties in consolidating.
