Separatists regain majority in regional election

BARCELONA, Spain—Catalonia’s secessionist parties won enough votes Thursday to regain a slim majority in the regional parliament and give new momentum to their political struggle for independence from Spain.

It was hardly an emphatic victory, however, as the separatists lost support compared to the previous vote in 2015, and a pro-unity party for the first time became Catalonia’s biggest single force in parliament.

The anti-independence, pro-business Ciutadans (Citizens) party garnered 37 seats in the 135-seat regional assembly with nearly 99 percent of the votes counted.

Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), the party of fugitive Catalan president Carles Puigdemont garnered 34 seats, left-republican ERC came third with 32 and the anti-capitalist CUP won four seats. The three pro-independence forces together make up 70 seats, two above a majority but two less than in the previous 2015 election.

“The election has resolved very little,” said Andrew Dowling, a specialist in Catalan history at Cardiff University in Wales. “Independence has won but in a way similar to 2015. Majority of seats but not in votes.”

Puigdemont, who was dismissed by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government, campaigned from Belgium, where he is evading a Spanish arrest warrant in a rebellion and sedition probe. He greeted the result with delight, but rebuked Spain’s central government.