Communist Party of the Workers of Spain to contest 2026 elections
The Political Bureau of the PCTE has decided to contest Spain’s general elections, scheduled for 29 November 2026.
The early election call comes after a week of intense struggle for the right to housing. These mobilisations, which have attracted widespread participation and reached high levels of militancy, add to the growing number of sectoral and local conflicts. This climate reflects the frustration and anger simmering within Spain’s working class in the face of the continued erosion of its purchasing power.
The Government is calling elections in the hope of channelling some of this discontent after eight years in power. The claim that more ambitious policies have been prevented by the constraints of parliamentary arithmetic is a pretext intended to conceal the underlying problem. Take housing, for example: Pedro Sánchez’s second government, which was also Spain’s first coalition government, had a sufficient parliamentary majority to pass three budgets and a housing law. Yet it did nothing whatsoever to undermine the interests of rentiers. The issue runs deeper: as long as housing remains a commodity, and as long as governments operate within the limits of what capital and its legal framework deem possible,there will be no solution to the fundamental problems facing the working class.
The Government cannot expect to emerge unscathed from nearly a decade in office that has left working men and women poorer than they were when it first came to power. The same applies to its junior coalition partner, for whom the end of the parliamentary term provides yet further confirmation of the failure of its political strategy. Social democracy has nothing to offer us beyond palliatives for our misery, and these are becoming increasingly ineffective.
We believe that growing numbers of workers are coming to recognise this, although despair and political apathy remain the predominant responses. It is precisely in this climate that reaction finds fertile ground. We cannot accept the political blackmail of invoking the spectre of reaction to keep us trapped within the existing political order. But neither can we underestimate the danger reaction poses to our class. A capitalist offensive is under way to sweep away our rights and freedoms, and the PP and VOX are eager to play a leading role in facilitating it. What matters above all is that we begin to fight in the way only our class knows how.
Enough half-heartedness, fear and class collaboration. We must meet the dark times of war and exploitation they seek to impose on us with boldness. We must break free and raise our fists once again: reclaim our political strength as a class and fill every sphere of life and work with struggle, organisation and hope. We must build a strong working-class opposition that, through its own struggle, will chart the course towards a new society: socialism-communism.
The PCTE will contest the elections to offer an alternative to the capitalist consensus. Our candidacy is committed to building a working-class opposition and equipping it with a unified programme of struggle against capitalism and reaction. Over the coming weeks, communist activists will take their message to every street, every square, every workplace and every educational institution, seeking to ensure that the communist option appears on the ballot in as many constituencies as possible.
Let us return to our own path: shoulder to shoulder, class against class.
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