BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – The pro-union Socialist Party won a narrow victory in Catalonia’s regional elections late Sunday, but the group of parties supporting secession through the north-eastern corner of Spain has increased its control over the regional parliament.
With 99% of the vote counted, the three main parties that promised an independent Catalan state increased their number of seats in the regional parliament to 74. In 2017, the same parties won 70 seats in the 135-seat chamber, just two above the majority.
The Socialist Party, led by former Health Minister Salvador Illa, was ready to take 33 seats with more than 625,000 votes. The Republican Left of Catalonia, which has pro-secession, would also claim 33 seats, but with 580,000 votes.
But despite the huge increase in support for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party, which has held talks with the separatists in an effort to ease tensions with the region, Illa will find it difficult to tie up support for a government . He will need the support of several parties, including some separatists.
“It’s a clear victory with one reading: it’s time to turn the page, write a new chapter, reach out to each other and progress together,” Illa said after his victory.
The result confirms that pro-separatist sentiment has not waned, despite the collective suffering of the COVID-19 pandemic and a frustrated secession offer in October 2017 that left several of its members in jail.
However, it was not clear whether the separatist parties would be able to overcome the struggle that plagued their bloc since the dream of an easy breakaway from Spain was elusive.
The results shifted the power within the pro-secession camp to the left-wing Republican Left Party of Catalonia, whose 33 seats won the center-right together for Catalonia, which would win 32 seats.
Catalonia’s Republican Left of prison leader Oriol Junqueras can now challenge the bloc’s leadership with Together for Catalonia, the party of former Catalan chief Carles Puidemont, who fled to Belgium after the ineffective 2017 breakaway bid.
Together for Catalonia maintains a more radical stance on breaking ties with Spain in the short term, while the Republican Left of Catalonia has lowered its tone in recent years and made a central government amnesty for Junqueras and other prison leaders a top priority. has – for now.
Adrià Hoguet, a 29-year-old banker, switched his voice from Together for Catalonia to the Republican Left of Catalonia.
“Although he wants an independent Catalonia, the party knows that it will not be easy and that it can not just be achieved because we have seen that it will not work,” Hoguet said after voting in Barcelona. has.
The region’s parliament was also ready to become more fragmented and radical.
The far-right Vox party entered the Catalan legislature for the first time with 11 seats, confirming the increase in Spain over the past few years. Its success comes at the expense of the Conservative Popular Party, which left three seats behind after a campaign in which it softened its previously difficult stance against the Catalan secessionist staff.
At the other end of the spectrum, the left-wing, pro-secession CUP party has improved to nine seats out of the four he won in 2017. The pre-secession forces therefore again need the unpredictable CUP to form a majority.
A potential regional government is likely to depend on agreement between parties that could take days or longer to conclude.
The use of hand masks and disinfectants by hand was mandatory at polling stations, as Spain is fighting another increase in infections for a country that has lost more than 64,000 lives to COVID-19.
For 29-year-old social worker Andrea Marín, the pandemic has increased her desire for a continuing union.
“I voted for the Socialists because I do not want my vote to be the separatists,” she said. “They are already spending a lot of money on advancing the separatist cause as what is most important today is the economy and ending the pandemic.”
Fear of viruses, bad weather and the absence of a concrete proposal by separatists to provoke another rift in the near future dampened voter turnout, and it dropped to 55%, compared to a record 79 % in December 2017. pro-secession parties, which perform better in rural areas over-represented in the election law.
Thus, while the Socialists rose at the expense of the liberal citizens, who fell to six seats after winning the election in December 2017 by 36, the Catalan political panorama remained unchanged in the essential question: the Mediterranean area bordering France is still roughly divided between those who support the creation of a Catalan state, and those who are eager to remain a part of Spain.
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Associated Press journalist Renata Brito contributed to this report.