2024-05-12 22:26:08
The push for change won this Sunday in Catalonia. And he did it three times. For the first time, the socialists achieved a victory in votes and seats in a regional election. The pro-independence parties were left without the majority they have held since the process began. And the wave of right-wing movement sweeping through Europe landed in style with a strengthened PP, a Vox that remains behind and with the extreme right-wing pro-independence group Aliança Catalana asking for access to Parliament.
The amnesty debate, which has soured Spanish politics to the limit, has had the opposite effect in Catalonia, since it has deactivated the independence movement and ended what was left of the process without giving the right a key role in the formation of Government. However, the alliances to form the new executive will not be easy and the winner, Salvador Illa, will have to work hard to form a government. Without a pro-independence majority, Illa will have the challenge of gathering support from the left, both from the decimated Republican Left and from Comunes Sumar. Another option would be a very unlikely government with Junts. Or the one that made its way late yesterday: a pact with the commons seeking abstentions and specific support from other parties. If he does not succeed, the specter of a repeat election in October will once again appear on the horizon.
In any case, the Partit dels Socialistes (PSC) was the big winner of the night by managing to conjure a victory both in votes and in seats that had eluded it even when it governed the Generalitat with Pasqual Maragall and José Montilla. Salvador Illa won 42 of the 135 seats in the Parliament, nine more than in the last elections and a solid 28% of the votes. This result reinforces the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in his risky commitment to amnesty and pacts with pro-independence forces.
Illa will have the responsibility of trying to form a government in the first instance, but it will not be easy for her. He will have to overcome a lot of reluctance, especially in ERC. The socialists built their resounding victory on a great result in the most populated cities. In his appearance as the winner, Illa focused on highlighting that Catalonia “opens a new stage” and that the Catalans have decided influenced “by many factors”, among which he highlighted “the policies followed by the Government of Spain and its president, Pedro Sánchez”, with the pardons for those convicted by the process first and with the amnesty, later. He wanted to mark distances with the closing stage. He said it by ensuring that the new cycle “will be for all Catalans, whatever they think, whatever language they speak and wherever they come from.”
What Illa did not do is give clues about what types of agreements she will seek from now on. He has three ways to become president. The first, most obvious, would be the left-wing pact. If ERC refuses to do so, it will be able to explore one with Junts. And there is a third option which would be to reach an agreement with the commons first and then obtain an abstention from other forces, starting with the PP. It would be a variant of what the socialists did last June in Barcelona, where they won the mayor’s office by adding the votes of the common people and the Popular Party to subsequently govern alone.
What Illa made clear is that he will run for the presidency of the Generalitat at the investiture. With this, the leader of the PSC wanted to give the signal that he will not succumb to the pressures of the independence movement to renounce his victory and the presidency in exchange for Junts continuing to support the government of Pedro Sánchez in the Congress of Deputies.
The second big headline of the night, the loss of the absolute majority of the independentistas. The collapse does not benefit much to its rivals from Junts per Catalunya, which trusted everything to the ‘Puigdemont effect’ and has not managed to take full advantage of the situation. The former president who fled Spanish justice has managed to revitalize his party with a hyper-personalist campaign, but he has only added four seats to the 32 he obtained in the last elections. With 21.6% of the votes, Puigdemont’s party can display the trophy of once again leading the independence spectrum, but they are very far from being able to articulate a majority to continue with the independence process.
Salvador Illa, during the electoral count. Emilio Morenatti (AP/ LaPresse)
In his appearance, a Puigdemont with a very low profile, congratulated Salvador Illa. He highlighted that Junts is the only pro-independence force that has grown in votes and seats. He, however, recognized that this “is not enough” to win the elections and “even less to begin the fall of the other two independence candidacies.” “There has been a unionist mobilization as a consequence of the Spanishization strategy of the campaign.” Regarding alliances, he said that he will try to form an independence government, although the numbers do not support it. The independentistas have gone from having 74 seats to only 59. And from 52% of the votes to 39.4%. This is without counting the 3.8% that the extreme right of Aliança Catalana has achieved. Saying that a left-wing tripartite is not convenient for Catalonia, Puigdemont called on ERC to open negotiations to add its deputies. What he did not say is that to achieve an eventual investiture he would need the abstention of at least the socialists, something that could be implemented in the ranks of the PSC as Illa made clear a few minutes later.
Puigdemont had a lot at stake in yesterday’s elections, also on a personal level. In a desperate attempt to mobilize militancy, the Junts leader assured that he will leave politics if he does not manage to be sworn in as president. Hence, he now has to get the presidency of the Generalitat by any means possible if he does not want to break his word.
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The big loser of the night was the Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, and his party. ERC. Esquerra only managed to retain 20 of the 33 seats it had and lost more than 180,000 votes. The adventure of presiding over the Generalitat will have barely lasted one term for the Republicans. Aragonès made it clear that he is considering resigning. “We will assume responsibilities after reading the results.” He said it in plural, as if this reflection also included the president of the party, Oriol Junqueras, who in his trusted circles does not hide his intention to lead a candidacy for the Generalitat in the future. The analysis made by the republican leader is that citizens have not only said “no” to his policies at the head of the Generalitat. “The citizens have said that it is up to someone else to lead the new stage.” And he pointed out those who have opposed him for this. “It will be up to the PSC and Junts to manage the new stage,” he said. With this he seemed to point the way to an agreement between the two major parties, an agreement that has been denied very repeatedly during the electoral campaign by both Illa and Puigdemont. The possibility that would open up would be that ERC offers to reach agreements with the PSC if the total blockage of negotiations with Junts is confirmed.
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The third big trend of the night was the rightward movement of the Parliament. The Popular Party shot up from three to fifteen seats and managed to literally eat the remains of Ciudadanos in the community that saw the birth of the orange party. What the PP did not achieve was to reduce the weight of Vox. Those of Ignacio Garriga and Santiago Abascal maintained the eleven seats they already had and even added almost 30,000 more votes. The PP candidate, Alejandro Fernández, highlighted his rise. However, the PP will only have a role in the Parliament if there is no tripartite support from the left and if there is an unlikely triangulation like the one that occurred in Barcelona.
Now come weeks of impasse in Catalonia. The parties will return to campaign next week, this time for the European elections. The negotiations and pacts, if they bear fruit, will not arrive until after June 9.
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