Several hundred people held raucous protests in Madrid and other Spanish cities, calling on MPs to approve measures to tackle a housing crisis in a parliamentary vote on Friday.
“Ultimately, I am asking us to put ideology and partisan divisions aside and focus on an issue that is simply about humanity,” he said earlier on Thursday. Madrid’s city council is controlled by the conservative Popular Party , which has vowed to vote against the package. Parliament is scheduled to vote on a package of measures adopted Tuesday by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government after nationwide protests sparked by Abascal’s eviction. But Sanchez’s Socialist-led coalition faces the arduous task of convincing enough parties in a heavily fragmented parliament to approve the decrees.
The package of measures to be put to a parliamentary vote came after a Madrid pensioner, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, was evicted from an apartment she had lived in for 70 years, sparking nationwide outrage and demonstrations.
