BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Separatist parties appear at risk of losing their decade-long power in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia, as the pro-union Socialist Party stands poised to win most of votes in Sunday’s election, according to a nearly complete count of ballots.
The four pro-independence parties, led by former regional president Carles Puigdemont’s Ensemble party, are expected to secure a total of 61 seats, far from the key figure of 68 seats needed to secure a majority in the chamber.
The socialists led by the former Minister of Health Salvador Illa are on course to win 42 seats, up from 33 seats in 2021, when they also won barely the most votes but failed to form a government.
The Socialists will still need to win the support of other parties to put Illa in charge. Reaching agreements in the coming days and even weeks will be essential to forming a government. Neither a hung parliament nor new elections are out of the question.
But Illa’s rise should bode well for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the Socialists ahead of European Parliament elections next month.
Separatists have occupied Barcelona’s regional government since 2012 and have won a majority in four consecutive regional elections. But polls and July’s national election showed support for secession has declined since Puigdemont waged an illegal — and futile — campaign. separatist offer in 2017.
Since then, Sánchez’s socialists have spent major political capital to reduce tensions in Catalonia, including pardoning imprisoned leading separatists and pushing through an amnesty for Puigdemont and hundreds of others.
More than 5.7 million voters were called to participate. Thousands of voters potentially struggled to reach their polling stations after Catalonia’s commuter rail service had to close several train lines following what authorities said was the theft of copper cables from a facility railway near Barcelona.
Puigdemont’s Ensemble party is expected to restore its leadership of the separatist camp with 35 seats, compared to 32 three years ago. He fled Spain after the 2017 secession attempt and led his campaign from the south of France, pledging to return home when lawmakers meet to elect a new regional president in the coming weeks.
Puigdemont’s flight from Spain became a legend among his supporters and a huge source of embarrassment for Spanish law enforcement. He recently denied during the campaign that he hid in the trunk of a car to avoid detection while crossing the border during a legal crackdown that landed several of his acolytes in prison until for the Sánchez government to pardon them.
The Republican Left of Catalonia of the current regional president Father Aragonès fell from 33 to 20 seats. But the left-wing separatist party, which has governed in a minority, could be key to Illa’s hopes, even if it would force him to break with the pro-secession bloc. .
The far-left Comuns-Sumar party’s six seats could also be key to a possible Illa coalition.
The Popular Party, which is the largest party in Spain’s national parliament where it leads the opposition, jumped from three to 15 seats.
Spain’s far-right ultranationalist Vox party retained its 11 seats, while at the other end of the spectrum, the far-left pro-secession party won four, up from nine.
A far-right pro-secessionist party called the Catalan Alliance, which denounces illegal immigration as well as the Spanish state, will enter the House for the first time with two seats.
A record droughtIt is not independence that is currently the main concern of Catalans, according to the latest survey by the Public Opinion Office of Catalonia.
The opinion bureau reported that 50% of Catalans are against independence, while 42% are in favor, meaning support for independence has fallen to 2012 levels. When Puigdemont left in 2017, 49% were in favor of independence and 43% were against.
News Source : apnews.com
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