Catalans vote in regional elections to measure the strength of the separatist movement

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Separatist parties are in danger of losing their decade-long hold on power in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region after the pro-union Socialist Party won the most votes in Sunday’s election.

The four pro-independence parties, led by the “Together” party led by former regional president Carles Puigdemont, are scheduled to obtain a total of 61 seats, according to an almost complete count of the votes. This is less than the key number of 68 seats needed to achieve a majority in the Council.

The Socialists are led by the former Minister of Health Salvador Ella They enjoyed a historic victory in the Catalan elections, winning 42 seats, up from 33 in 2021, when they barely won a majority of votes but were unable to form a government. This was the first time that the Socialists led the Catalan elections in both votes and seats.

“Catalonia has decided to open a new era,” Illa told cheering supporters at his party headquarters. “Catalan voters have decided that the Socialist Party will lead this new era, and I intend to become the next president of Catalonia.”

The Socialists will need to enlist the support of other parties to put Ella in charge. Reaching agreements in the coming days, and perhaps weeks, will be essential for forming the government. Neither a hung parliament nor new elections are unlikely.

But there is a way for Ella to reach the target of 68 seats. The Socialists already form a coalition government in Madrid with the Somar party, which now holds six seats in the Catalan parliament. But the most difficult part will be winning over a leftist party from the separatist camp.

Regardless of those negotiations, the rise of the Ella party should bode well for Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the Socialists ahead of next month’s European Parliament elections.

Separatists have controlled the regional government in Barcelona since 2012, and have won a majority in four consecutive regional elections. But opinion polls and national elections in July showed that support for secession has diminished since Puigdemont led an illegitimate – and ineffective – government. Attempt to break up In 2017.

Puigdemont said: “The nomination you led achieved a good result. We are the only pro-independence force that increased its votes and seats, and we bear the responsibility that results from that.” “But that is not enough to compensate for the losses of other separatist parties.”

Sánchez’s Socialists have since spent significant political capital on reducing tensions in Catalonia, including pardoning prominent jailed separatists and moving forward with an amnesty for Puigdemont and hundreds of others.

Illa said that the Socialists’ victory “was due to many factors that must be analyzed, but one of these factors was the policies and leadership of the Spanish government and Pedro Sanchez.”

The “Together” party, led by Puigdemont, regained its leadership of the separatist camp by winning 35 seats, compared to 32 seats three years ago. He fled Spain after a 2017 secession attempt and ran his election campaign from southern France, vowing that he would return to his homeland when lawmakers meet to elect a new regional president in the coming weeks.

Puigdemont’s escape from Spain became the stuff of legend among his followers, and a major source of embarrassment to Spanish law enforcement forces. He recently denied during the election campaign that he hid in the trunk of a car to avoid detection while sneaking across the border during a legal crackdown that led to the imprisonment of several of his comrades until the Sánchez government pardoned them.

The number of seats for the Republican Left in Catalonia, led by regional president Pere Aragonés, decreased to 20 seats from 33 seats. But the leftist separatist party, which ruled in the minority during his rule, was in the minority. Drought recordHe could be key to Ella’s hopes, although that would require him to break away from the pro-secession bloc.

The number of seats for the Popular Party, the largest party in the Spanish National Parliament where it leads the opposition, rose to 15 seats from three.

The far-right Spanish nationalist Vox party took 11 seats, while at the other end of the spectrum, the far-left pro-secessionist Cup party won four seats, up from nine.

A far-right, pro-secessionist party called the Catalan Alliance, which opposes unauthorized immigration as well as the Spanish state, will enter the chamber for the first time with two seats.

“We have seen that Catalonia is not immune to the wave of far-right reactionism sweeping Europe,” said Aragonés, the outgoing regional president.

Crippling drought, not independence, is the current main concern of Catalans, according to the latest poll conducted by the Catalan Public Opinion Office.

The Opinion Bureau said 50% of Catalans opposed independence while 42% supported it, meaning support for it had fallen to 2012 levels. When Puigdemont left in 2017, 49% supported independence and 43% opposed it.

More than 3.1 million voted, with a participation rate of 57%. Thousands of voters were likely to have difficulty reaching polling stations when Catalonia’s commuter rail service was forced to close several train lines after what officials said was the theft of copper cables from a train facility near Barcelona.