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7 March 2021 2.00 h

Election sees record win for pro-indy bloc

ERC, Junts and CUP together claim historic 74 seats in the Catalan parliament, with all pro-independence votes exceeding 50% for the first time. The Catalan Socialists get the most votes of any party, but are unlikely to be able to form a government

Those who had given the in­de­pen­dence move­ment up for dead were in for a sur­prise when the re­sults of the Cata­lan elec­tion on Feb­ru­ary 14 were an­nounced. The po­lit­i­cal par­ties in the Cata­lan par­lia­ment that sup­port in­de­pen­dence saw their over­all ma­jor­ity go up from the 72 seats they won in 2015 and 2017 to a record 74 seats. With 68 seats re­quired for a ma­jor­ity in the cham­ber, the pro-in­de­pen­dence par­ties now have the op­tion of form­ing an­other coali­tion Cata­lan gov­ern­ment.

The pro-in­de­pen­dence par­ties to­gether also won the pop­u­lar vote, ex­ceed­ing 50% for the first time, if the votes of PDe­CAT, Pri­maries, FNC and MCR – de­spite them not get­ting any seats – are added to those of the main par­ties, ERC, Junts, and CUP. Mean­while, the pro-in­de­pen­dence par­ties were the clear win­ners in the provinces of Girona, Tar­rag­ona and Lleida, al­though the PSC Cata­lan So­cial­ists won in Barcelona, mostly at the ex­pense of Ciu­tadans (Cs).

Through­out the night, as the votes were counted, it was not clear whether the pro-in­de­pen­dence left­wing re­pub­li­cans, ERC, or the Cata­lan So­cial­ists, PSC, would come out as the of­fi­cial win­ners of the elec­tion. In the end PSC pipped ERC at the post, with 650,750 votes to 602,442 votes, with both par­ties win­ning 33 seats in the cham­ber. It was a big night for PSC, which al­most dou­bled the 17 seats it ob­tained in the last elec­tion just over two years ago, win­ning in Barcelona, Badalona and L’Hos­pi­talet de Llo­bre­gat, as well as re­cov­er­ing Cata­lan cities where they had not won for a long time, such as Mataró, where they last won some 18 years ago.

In fact, it was the first time in a Cata­lan elec­tion that the So­cial­ists have won both the pop­u­lar vote and the high­est num­ber of seats. How­ever, given the po­ten­tial joint pro-in­de­pen­dence ma­jor­ity in the cham­ber, for­mer min­is­ter in Madrid and PSC leader Sal­vador Illa will find it very hard to form any type of gov­ern­ment. Even if PSC were to reach an agree­ment with the other union­ist par­ties in the cham­ber, it would still not have the nec­es­sary ma­jor­ity to form a gov­ern­ment. What’s more, PSC ruled out any sort of agree­ment on a left­wing gov­ern­ment with ERC be­fore the elec­tion be­cause of the lat­ter’s pro-in­de­pen­dence stance.

Pro-in­de­pen­dence bloc

Also gain­ing 33 seats, it was a night of cel­e­bra­tion for ERC, which im­proved on the 32 it won in 2017. The party’s main can­di­date, Pere Aragonès, sur­passed the re­sults of his cur­rently jailed party leader, Oriol Jun­queras, in the last elec­tion, and Aragonés quickly an­nounced his in­ten­tion to put his name for­ward for pres­i­dent. This lat­est show­ing con­tin­ues the rise in pop­u­lar­ity of the left­wing re­pub­li­cans, the Cata­lan party that won the most seats in the Span­ish par­lia­ment in the last gen­eral elec­tion, as well as being the most voted party in Cat­alo­nia in the last local elec­tions.

As for the other main pro-in­de­pen­dence party, Junts, it came out of the elec­tion with 32 seats, two less than in 2017. It is likely that ERC and Junts will again form a pro-in­de­pen­dence gov­ern­ment on the back of their ma­jor­ity in the cham­ber, as long as the far-left, pro-in­de­pen­dence CUP party again lends them their votes. How­ever, should that hap­pen, there will be one change in a fu­ture Cata­lan gov­ern­ment, as this time ERC will be the part­ner with the most seats, and a new pres­i­dent will there­fore be cho­sen from among its ranks (most likely Aragonés), no doubt leav­ing Junts’ main can­di­date, Laura Borràs, out of the run­ning for the top job.

As men­tioned above, for ERC and Junts to be able to form an­other coali­tion gov­ern­ment, they will again need the votes of CUP. There is every rea­son to be­lieve that CUP will be will­ing to co­op­er­ate in mak­ing a pro-in­de­pen­dence gov­ern­ment pos­si­ble, even if it again re­fuses to take part in the ex­ec­u­tive due to its ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences with the other two par­ties. CUP re­gained the ground it lost in the pre­vi­ous elec­tion, rais­ing its num­ber of seats in the cham­ber from four to nine, the same num­ber it won in 2015. This elec­tion also marked an his­toric mile­stone for the far-left party, as for the first time it ob­tained rep­re­sen­ta­tion in all four Cata­lan provinces. Mean­while, this time PDe­CAT is left out of the pro-in­de­pen­dence bloc in par­lia­ment, after it failed to win any seats fol­low­ing its split from Junts.

The right loses ground

An­other first in this elec­tion is the entry in the par­lia­ment for the first time of the far-right party, Vox, which makes its debut with 11 seats. How­ever, those gains were at the ex­pense of other par­ties on the right, with Cs los­ing 30 of the 36 seats it won in the last elec­tion, and PP drop­ping from four to three seats. Cs’ poor show­ing means that the party will now have cri­sis talks about its fu­ture and whether it keeps Car­los Car­ri­zosa as its leader in the par­lia­ment.

Mean­while, for left­wing party En Comú Podem, the fact that its Span­ish wing is in a coali­tion gov­ern­ment with the So­cial­ists in Madrid did not seem to help it in this elec­tion, as it won the same eight seats as it did last time. The party’s leader in the house, Jéssica Al­bi­ach, im­me­di­ately called for a left­wing coali­tion gov­ern­ment with PSC and ERC. How­ever, as men­tioned, with PSC and ERC un­will­ing to deal with each other, that re­mains a very dis­tant pos­si­bil­ity. With talks be­tween the main pro-in­de­pen­dence par­ties un­der­way in the days fol­low­ing the elec­tion, the most likely sce­nario is an­other pro-in­de­pen­dence coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

fea­ture 14F Elec­tions

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