Salvador Illa’s Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) won the regional elections with 27.9 percent of the votes. Despite the historic victory both in terms of votes and seats (42), in order to form a new government in Catalonia, Illa will be forced to start difficult negotiations with the pro-independence parties, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) of the outgoing president, Pere Aragones, and United for Catalonia (JxCat) by Carles Puigdemont. The two Catalan nationalist groups were the big losers in yesterday’s election and lost the absolute majority they had held in the Catalan Parliament for 13 years. JxCat overtook ERC as the main party of the pro-independence front with 21.6 percent of the preferences (35 seats). Pere Aragones’s formation lost 13 seats compared to the 2021 elections, reaching 13.6 percent. On the other hand, the centre-right front emerges significantly strengthened with the People’s Party which with 10.9 percent of the votes has secured 13 more regional councillors, while Vox with 7.9 percent confirms its 11 seats of the past legislature.
Without a pro-independence majority, Illa will have to gather the support of the left, both ERC and Comuns-Sumar. However, the leader of ERC, Pere Aragones, as soon as the results of the polls made the defeat clear, declared that his formation will respect ‘the “will”‘ of the Catalan people and “will work with the opposition”. The outgoing Catalan president stated that “individual and collective” responsibility for the negative result will have to be assumed once the party has analyzed the results “more calmly”. “Polarization has marked the results and it will be up to the opposition to manage the new phase that opens from now on,” he added. According to Carles Puigdemont, on the contrary, the pro-independence forces must sit down to talk again to “rebuild bridges” and reflect on the effects of the lack of “a shared strategy” that led to the victory of the PSC. Puigdemont called on Aragones to reject a possible pact with the socialists to “build a solid government of pure Catalan obedience” and avoid a repetition of the elections which would be “bad news” for Catalonia.
For the great winner of the Catalan elections, Salvador Illa, with yesterday’s vote the citizens decided to “open a new phase” after more than a decade in which the region was led by ERC and JxCat. “Many factors influenced this decision. Certainly one of these was the policy carried out by the Spanish government and its president Pedro Sanchez”, underlined Illa. “The Catalans have decided that it is up to the PSC to lead this new era. I assume this responsibility and as soon as the Bureau of the Parliament is established I will express my desire to preside over the Generalitat of Catalonia”, assured the former Spanish Health Minister of the Sanchez government during the coronavirus pandemic.
As predicted by the pre-election polls, a phase of uncertainty now opens for Catalonia with the specter of a repeat vote if Illa is not able to build an alliance with ERC and Comuns-Sumar. On the other hand, the reconstruction of an independentist executive appears to be a rather remote hypothesis both in terms of numbers (JxCat and ERC cannot count on an absolute majority) and due to the necessary abstention of the socialists who do not want to give up a victory after having lost control of almost all the regions of Spain fell into the hands of the People’s Party in May last year.
