{"text":[[{"start":7.4,"text":"Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap general election on Monday as the country’s leftwing leader seizes on a housing crisis as a chance to face down his rightwing opponents."}],[{"start":19.05,"text":"Sánchez, a Socialist who has been in power for more than eight years, called an election three days after rightwing parties in parliament defeated government legislation designed to tackle a surge in housing costs."}],[{"start":31.9,"text":"The decision to hold a vote on November 29 is a gamble that could, if it backfires, open the way for a coalition of conservatives and rightwing populists to take power in the EU’s fourth-largest economy."}],[{"start":44.5,"text":"Although access to affordable housing has worsened dramatically since Sánchez took power in 2018, analysts say he is calculating that anger over the rejected housing bill will energise his base while suppressing right-of-centre votes."}],[{"start":58.75,"text":"Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative opposition People’s Party (PP), said the election was “a choice between corruption and decency, between decline and prosperity, between a government that merely seeks to survive and a country that looks to its future”."}],[{"start":76.05,"text":"Rightwing parties have lambasted Sánchez for a series of corruption allegations against people close to him, including his wife Begoña Gómez, who is set to stand trial and denies wrongdoing."}],[{"start":88.2,"text":"The Spanish election will come roughly eight months before the end of Sánchez’s constitutional four-year term and ahead of elections next year in France, Italy and Poland."}],[{"start":97.8,"text":"Opinion polls carried out before parliament rejected the housing bill on Friday suggested the PP and the rightwing populists of Vox could secure enough votes to oust Sánchez and form a governing alliance."}],[{"start":109.5,"text":"Pablo Simón, a politics professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, said that although the housing issue could harm as well as help Sánchez, the premier was seizing on “the best window of opportunity available to him”."}],[{"start":123.45,"text":"“It’s an early election whose aim is to minimise the risk of what, according to the polls, is a more than foreseeable defeat.”"}],[{"start":130.65,"text":"In an address to the nation, Sánchez told Spaniards they must decide “whether you wish to join the far-right wave that rolls back progress wherever it governs, or whether you want Spain to remain a bastion of openness, social justice and environmental responsibility. Whether you want our country to go backwards or continue moving forwards”."}],[{"start":151.8,"text":"Sánchez has turned himself into a lonely figurehead for the European left — an advocate for immigration and an opponent of unfettered defence spending — as rightwing populists and far-right parties are on the march across the EU."}],[{"start":164.60000000000002,"text":"Public anger about housing boiled over in the past two weeks following the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her Madrid apartment because she could not afford a rent increase."}],[{"start":174.70000000000002,"text":"Sánchez said his government “made Spain a global leader in peace, feminism and prosperity”, referring to its status as the world’s fastest-growing large, advanced economy in the past two years."}],[{"start":187.10000000000002,"text":"But the PP repeated its excoriating critique of Sánchez and his minority coalition government, which has been unable to pass any major legislation for the past three years."}],[{"start":199.10000000000002,"text":"“We have suffered from [Sánchez’s] unscrupulous politics and boundless ambition for power,” said Feijóo, arguing that the government “has corrupted our institutions and the management of public funds, and it has corrupted the nation’s trust”."}],[{"start":214.90000000000003,"text":"Sánchez’s government has also overseen a sharp rise in Spain’s immigrant population, which has been crucial to the country’s economic success, but also stoked housing strains and other social tensions. Most recently, Sánchez’s government mismanaged the unauthorised influx of more than 70,000 migrants into Ceuta, one of its exclaves in north Africa."}],[{"start":243.15000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1791214603_9065.mp3"}