“Many factors influenced the choice adopted by the Catalans” said Salvador Illa, Catalan socialist leader, “and one of these is, without a doubt, the policies applied by the Spanish government and by President Pedro Sánchez”. Illa then added that “no Catalan will be excluded from this new stage that we open today”
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In Catalonia, with the candidate for governor Salvador Illa, Sanchez’s socialists win and become the largest political force, overtaking the independent party Junts for Catalonia. However, uncertainty remains about possible alliances to govern. Pro-independence parties have lost their majority in the Catalan Parliament for the first time in thirteen years. “The Catalans have decided that it is up to the Party of Socialists of Catalonia (PSC) to lead a new stage. I assume this responsibility and as soon as Parliament is established I will express my availability to preside over the government” announced Salvador Illa, commenting on the election results . “Many factors influenced the choice adopted by the Catalans” continued the Catalan socialist leader, “and one of these is, without a doubt, the policies applied by the Spanish government and by President Pedro Sánchez”. Illa then added that “no Catalan will be excluded from this new stage that we open today”.
The situation in 2021
With the vote practically concluded, Junts with Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya of the outgoing governor Pere Aragones, and the anti-capitalist Cup obtained a total of 59 seats out of the 135 in the Catalan chamber, far from the absolute majority of 68 seats. And for an independent majority, not even the 2 seats obtained by the anti-Islamist and secessionist party Aliança Catalana, making its debut in the Generalitat, are sufficient. Salvador Illa’s PSC obtained 42 seats. The three pro-independence parties had obtained 74 seats in the previous 2021 elections. The People’s Party is the fourth political force with 14 seats, ahead of the ultra-right Vox, with 11, and the Comuns of the former mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau, with 6 seats.
The alliances that are looming
In the scenarios of possible government alliances, the most probable, according to all analysts, is a tripartite agreement between PSC-ERC and the Comuns Esquerra republicana could definitively leave the independence bloc behind, strengthening the agreement with the socialists, of which it is an interlocutor also privileged by the progressive Psoe-Sumar government.
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Sanchez’s line
The vote took place six years after Puigdemont led an independence bid in 2017, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades. Led by Salvador Illa, Spain’s health minister during the pandemic, the Catalan socialist party won nine more seats than in the previous elections in 2021. Hailing the result as “historic” in a post on beginning of “a new era in Catalonia”. This is, in fact, an important victory for Sanchez, who wanted to demonstrate that his policy of defusing the tensions triggered by the Catalan crisis had worked, ultimately reducing pro-independence sentiment in this rich north-eastern region of eight million people .
