Six years after plunging Spain into its worst political disaster in a long time, Catalonia’s separatist events are at risk of dropping their maintain on energy within the northeastern area after the pro-union Socialist Occasion scored a historic lead to Sunday’s election.
The 4 pro-independence events, led by the Collectively celebration of former regional president Carles Puigdemont, had been set to get a complete of 61 seats, in keeping with a near-complete rely of the ballots. That’s wanting the important thing determine of 68 seats wanted for a majority within the chamber.
The Socialists led by former well being minister Salvador Illa savored their greatest lead to a Catalan election, claiming 42 seats, up from 33 in 2021, when additionally they barely gained probably the most votes however had been unable to kind a authorities. This was the primary time the Socialists led a Catalan election in each votes and seats gained.
“Catalonia has determined to open a brand new period,” Illa advised his thrilled supporters at his celebration headquarters. “Catalan voters have determined that the Socialist Occasion will lead this new period, and it’s my intention to develop into Catalonia’s subsequent president.”
Illa led Spain’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic earlier than Sánchez despatched him again to Barcelona to guide his celebration. The 58-year-old Illa’s calm tone and deal with social points satisfied many citizens that it was time to vary after years of separatists urgent for severing century-old ties with the remainder of Spain.
Sánchez congratulated Illa on the X platform for the “historic end result.”
The Socialists might want to earn the backing of different events to place Illa in cost. Dealmaking within the coming days, perhaps weeks, shall be key to forming a authorities. Neither a hung parliament nor a brand new election is out of the query.
However there’s a path for Illa to succeed in the aim of 68 seats. The Socialists are already in a coalition authorities in Madrid with the Sumar celebration, which now has six seats within the Catalan parliament. However the laborious half shall be wooing over a leftist celebration from the separatist camp.
No matter these negotiations, Illa’s surge ought to bode properly for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the Socialists earlier than European Parliament elections subsequent month.
Separatists have held the regional authorities in Barcelona since 2012 and had gained majorities in 4 consecutive regional elections. However polling and a nationwide election in July confirmed that help for secession has shrunk since Puigdemont led an unlawful — and futile — breakaway bid in 2017 that led to lots of of companies and Catalonia’s main banks leaving the area.
“The candidacy that I led had a superb end result, we’re the one pro-independence pressure to extend in votes and seats, and we assume the accountability that entails,” Puigdemont mentioned. “However that isn’t sufficient to compensate the losses of the opposite separatists events.”
Sánchez’s Socialists have spent main political capital since then in decreasing tensions in Catalonia, together with pardoning jailed high-profile separatists and pushing by an amnesty for Puigdemont and lots of extra.
The Socialist win “is because of many elements that must analyze, however a type of elements had been the insurance policies and management of the federal government of Spain and Pedro Sánchez,” Illa mentioned.
The Collectively celebration of Puigdemont restored its management of the separatist camp with 35 seats, up from 32 three years in the past. He fled Spain after the 2017 secession try and has run his marketing campaign from southern France on the pledge that he’ll return residence when lawmakers convene to elect a brand new regional president within the coming weeks.
Puigdemont’s escape from Spain turned the stuff of legend amongst his followers, and an enormous supply of embarrassment for Spain’s legislation enforcement. He not too long ago denied throughout the marketing campaign that he had hidden himself in a automotive trunk to keep away from detection whereas he slipped throughout the border throughout a authorized crackdown that landed a number of of his cohorts in jail till Sánchez’s authorities pardoned them.
Now, the one approach Puigdemont might hold the separatists in authorities would rely on the far-fetched chance of a cope with Sánchez to ensure the separatists’ help of his nationwide authorities in Madrid in change for Illa returning the favor to the separatists in Barcelona.
The Republican Left of Catalonia of sitting regional president Pere Aragonès plummeted to twenty seats from 33. However the leftist separatist celebration, which has ruled in minority throughout a file drought, might be key to Illa’s hopes, though that might require it to interrupt with the pro-secession bloc.
The Widespread Occasion, which is the most important celebration in Spain’s nationwide parliament the place it leads the opposition, surged to fifteen seats from three.
The far-right, Spanish ultra-nationalist celebration Vox held its 11 seats, whereas on the opposite finish of the spectrum, the far-left, pro-secession Cup took 4, down from 9.
An upstart pro-secession, far-right celebration known as Catalan Alliance, which rails in opposition to unauthorized immigration in addition to the Spanish state, will enter the chamber for the primary time with two seats.
“Now we have seen that Catalonia isn’t proof against the reactionary, far-right wave sweeping Europe,” Aragonés, the outgoing regional president, mentioned.
The crippling drought, not independence, is at present the main concern of Catalans, in keeping with the latest survey by Catalonia’s public opinion workplace.
The opinion workplace mentioned that fifty% of Catalans are in opposition to independence whereas 42% are for it, that means help for it has dipped to 2012 ranges. When Puigdemont left in 2017, 49% favored independence and 43% had been in opposition to.
Greater than 3.1 million folks voted, with participation at 57%. Probably 1000’s of voters had bother reaching their polling stations when Catalonia’s commuter rail service needed to shut down a number of prepare traces after what officers mentioned was the theft of copper cables from a prepare set up close to Barcelona.
