BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – The pro-union Socialist Party won a narrow victory in the regional elections in Catalonia at the end of Sunday, but the block of parties that support secession in northeastern Spain has broadened its control of the regional parliament.
With 99% of the votes counted, the three main parties that promised to create an independent Catalan state increased their number of seats in the regional parliament to 74. In 2017, those 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 about to take 33 seats with more than 625,000 votes. The Republican pro-secession Republican left of Catalonia is also expected to claim 33 seats, but with 580,000 votes.
But despite the huge boost in support for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party, which held talks with separatists in an attempt to ease tensions with the region, Illa will have a hard time trying to get support for a government together. He would need the support of several parties, including some separatists.
“This is a clear victory that has a reading: it’s time to turn the page, write a new chapter, reach out and move forward together,” said Illa after his victory.
The result confirms that pro-separatist sentiment has not abated, despite the collective suffering of the COVID-19 pandemic and an unsuccessful attempt at secession in October 2017, which left several of its members in prison.
However, it was not clear whether the separatist parties would be able to overcome the internal struggle that has plagued their bloc, since the dream of an easy escape from Spain proved to be illusory.
The results transferred power within the pro-secession camp to the left party of the Republican Left of Catalonia, whose 33 seats surpassed the center-right Juntos por Catalunya, set to win 32 seats.
The Catalan Republican left of imprisoned leader Oriol Junqueras can now dispute the bloc’s leadership with Juntos for Catalonia, a party of former Catalan chief Carles Puidemont, who fled to Belgium after the ineffective 2017 cut offer.
Together for Catalonia, it maintains a more radical stance on the breaking of ties with Spain in the short term, while the Republican left of Catalonia lowered its tone last year and defined the amnesty of the central authorities for Junqueras and other imprisoned leaders as its main priority – for now.
Adrià Hoguet, 29, who works in the banking sector, changed his vote from Together for Catalonia to the Republican Left of Catalonia.
“Even though it wants an independent Catalonia, the party knows that it will not be easy and cannot be reached just by moving forward, because we have seen that it will not work,” said Hoguet after voting in Barcelona.
The region’s parliament was also about to become more fragmented and more radical.
The far-right party Vox entered the Catalan legislature for the first time with 11 seats, confirming its rise across Spain in recent years. Its success came at the expense of the conservative Popular Party, which took three seats after a campaign in which it softened its previously hard-line stance against Catalan separatists.
On the other side of the spectrum, the far-left pro-secession CUP party has increased to nine seats out of the four it won in 2017. Then again, pro-secession forces will need the unpredictable CUP to form the majority.
A potential regional government is likely to depend on agreements between the parties that may take days or more to complete.
The use of facial masks and hand sanitizer was mandatory in polling stations, while Spain faces another increase in infections in a country that has already lost more than 64,000 lives to COVID-19.
For social worker Andrea Marín, 29, the pandemic has increased her desire for continued unity.
“I voted for the Socialists because I don’t want my vote to go to the separatists,” she said. “They are already spending a lot of money in promoting the separatist cause when what matters today is the economy and the end of the pandemic.”
Fear of viruses, bad weather and the absence of a concrete proposal by separatists to provoke a disruption again in the near future seemed to decrease voter turnout, which dropped to 55%, compared with a record 79% turnout in December 2017. This seemed to favor pro-secession parties, which do better in rural areas over-represented in the electoral law.
Thus, while socialists rose at the expense of liberal citizens, who plummeted to six seats after winning the December 2017 elections at 36, the Catalan political landscape remained unchanged on the essential question: the Mediterranean region bordering France is still divided between those who support the creation of a Catalan state and those who fervently wish to remain part of Spain.
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Associated Press journalist Renata Brito contributed to this report.