Pro-union party wins big in Catalan election
BARCELONA, Spain — Six years after plunging Spain into its worst political crisis in decades, Catalonia's separatist parties are in danger of losing their hold on power in the northeastern region after the pro-union Socialist Party scored a historic result in Sunday's election.
The four pro-independence parties, led by the Together party of former regional president Carles Puigdemont, were set to get a total of 61 seats, according to a near-complete count of the ballots. That is short of the 68 seats needed for a majority in the chamber.
The Socialists, led by former health minister Salvador Illa, savored their best result in a Catalan election, claiming 42 seats, up from 33 in 2021, when they also barely won the most votes but were unable to form a government. This was the first time the Socialists led a Catalan election in both votes and seats won.
“Catalonia has decided to open a new era,” Illa told his thrilled supporters at his party headquarters. “Catalan voters have decided that the Socialist Party will lead this new era, and it is my intention to become Catalonia's next president.”
Illa led Spain's response to the covid-19 pandemic before Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sent him back to Barcelona to lead his party. The 58-yearold Illa's calm tone and focus on social issues convinced many voters that it was time to change after years of separatists pressing for severing century-old ties with the rest of Spain.
Sánchez congratulated Illa on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, for the “historic result.”
The Socialists will need to earn the backing of other parties to put Illa in charge. Dealmaking in the coming days, maybe weeks, will be key to forming a government. Neither a hung parliament nor a new election is out of the question.
But there is a path for Illa to reach the goal of 68 seats. The Socialists are already in a coalition government in Madrid with the Sumar party, which now has six seats in the Catalan parliament. But the hard part will be wooing over a leftist party from the separatist camp.
Regardless of those negotiations, Illa's surge should bode well for Sánchez and the Socialists before European Parliament elections next month.
Separatists have held the regional government in Barcelona since 2012 and had won majorities in four consecutive regional elections. But polling and a national election in July showed that support for secession has shrunk since Puigdemont led an illegal — and futile — breakaway bid in 2017 that led to hundreds of businesses and Catalonia's major banks leaving the region.
The Together party of Puigdemont restored its leadership of the separatist camp with 35 seats, up from 32 three years ago. He fled Spain after the 2017 secession attempt and has run his campaign from southern France on the pledge that he will return home when lawmakers convene to elect a new regional president in the coming weeks.
The Republican Left of Catalonia party of sitting regional president Pere Aragonès plummeted to 20 seats from 33. But the leftist separatist party, which has governed in minority during a record drought, could be key to Illa's hopes, although that would require it to break with the pro-secession bloc.
The Popular Party, which is the largest party in Spain's national parliament, surged to 15 seats from three.
The far-right, Spanish ultra-nationalist party Vox held its 11 seats, while on the other end of the spectrum, the farleft, pro-secession Cup took four, down from nine.