Separatists lead vote; premier rebuffed
BARCELONA — Spain’s effort to snuff out an independence drive in Catalonia was dealt a significant blow Thursday as secessionists narrowly won an election called by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in hopes of calming the country’s constitutional crisis.
After Catalonia’s separatist lawmakers declared independence in late October, Rajoy invoked emergency powers for the first time in Spain’s democratic history. He ousted the Catalan government and imposed direct rule on the formerly autonomous region.
Rajoy then called new elections for the regional parliament, hoping to reshuffle the political deck and calculating that Catalan voters would punish the secessionist leaders. Many are now being prosecuted for sedition and rebellion and campaigned from prison or exile.
That gamble did not pay off. Official results showed Catalonia’s separatist parties once again winning a narrow majority in the region’s parliament — as they had before — an outcome that could allow them to revive their independence drive.
After months of feuding, Rajoy, Catalonia and indeed all of Spain ended up close to where the crisis had started.
The standoff is now certain to enter a new and equally contentious phase. It has already unsettled not only Spain but also its neighbors in the European Union, many of whom are fearful of separatist challenges of their own at a time of rising populism and nationalism. Almost no politician outside of Catalonia has supported the drive for independence.
But this time Rajoy will be politically weakened, even at a national level, after having lost his bet that a sufficiently large majority of Catalans would rally behind his call for Spanish unity to block the secessionist challenge.
“This result does nothing to solve the conflict but instead reinforces the extremists on both sides,” said Elisenda Malaret Garcia, a professor of administrative law at the University of Barcelona.
The election campaign has now helped harden positions on all sides — between the central government in Madrid and the separatist leadership, as well as between unionists and separatists in Catalonia.
The prosperous northeastern region, which includes Barcelona, the hub of Spain’s thriving tourism sector, has harbored desires for independence based on its distinct language and culture for generations.
But even in Catalonia, the results reflected painful divisions, with the separatist parties squeaking out a majority of seats — narrower even than the fragile one they held before.
The three main separatist parties won 70 of the 135 seats in the Catalan parliament, official results showed. Overall, the separatists won only about 47 percent of the votes, according to the preliminary results, but they benefited from a voting system that favors their dominance in rural areas.
The leaders of the two main separatist parties campaigned from outside Catalonia — one from prison in Madrid and the other from a self-imposed exile in Belgium — and both face prosecution for rebellion after a botched attempt to flout Spain’s Constitution and declare unilateral independence.