Catalans vote under curbs, test for separatists unfolds
BARCELONA: The strength of the separatist movement in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia is being tested on Sunday as 5.3 million voters are called to cast ballots in a regional election held under tight restrictions to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
Salvador Illa, who was in charge of Spain’s coronavirus response as its health minister until last month, leads the ticket of the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Illa is hoping to end the hold pro-independence lawmakers have held in the regional parliament for the past decade.
Polls, however, predict a tight race between the Socialists and the two leading pro-secession parties, the let-wing Republic Let of Catalonia and the center-right Together for Catalonia.
The goal of separatists is to not only maintain their slim majority of the Catalan parliament based in Barcelona, but also try to break the 50% barrier of the popular vote for the first time.
The wealthy region, with its own language spoken alongside Spanish, has been the source of Spain’s biggest political crisis in decades since separatists leaders failed in a 2017 secession bid in defiance of court warnings it was unconstitutional.
Several of those leaders ended up in prison, while others fled to other European countries.
According to pre-election surveys, the Mediterranean region bordering with France is still roughly split between those who support the creation of a Catalan state, and those who are fervently for remaining a part of Spain.
For Albert Pérez, a 38-year-old architect, the pandemic has had no impact in his vote, which went to Together for Catalonia because Pérez wanted to show his support for Carles Puigdemont, the leader of the ineffective breakaway bid in Oct. 2017.
Puigdemont fled to Belgium in its atermath and has won a European Parliament seat ater avoiding extradition.
“It makes me very mad that the Spanish state could just take away our president,” Pérez said ater casting his ballot in Barcelona.
However, Andrea Marín, a 29-year-old social worker, said that the pandemic has increased her desire for a continued union.
“I voted for the Socialists because I don’t want my vote to go the separatists,” she said.
“They are already spending a lot of money on promoting the separatist cause when what maters today is the economy and ending the pandemic.”