ARCHIVED - Catalonian Socialists take the most votes in regional elections with record low turnout
Former Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa intends to present himself for investiture, but will need to secure support among pro-independence groups, whose cause remains very much alive and kicking
Sunday 14 February saw what may well have been the strangest regional elections Catalonia has ever experienced, with people manning polling stations having to don PPE as people with confirmed and/or potential cases of coronavirus turned out to exercise their right to vote.
The PSC (Catalonian Socialist Party) was victorious with candidate and former Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa taking the most votes, 23 per cent, and 33 seats in regional parliament, the party’s best result since 2006.
Yet that alone was far from sufficient to beat the pro-independence parties, which although fragmented have come out stronger. Catalonian Republican party ERC came a very close second, also with 33 seats and 21.3 per cent of the votes. Third came Junts per Catalunya with 32 seats and 20 per cent of the votes. The big surprise of the day was the increasingly popular, far-right party Vox, which came in fourth with 11 seats.
En Comú Podem, the Catalonian branch of left-wing Podemos, managed to hang onto their eight seats, while anti-capitalist CUP party obtained their best ever result with nine. Ciudadanos, who won the most seats in 2017, saw their support disintegrate and managed to cling to just 6 seats this time round in one of the biggest disasters ever seen in a Catalonian election. Conservatives PP also lost seats and will now have just 3.
With 68 seats required to obtain an absolute majority in Catalonian parliament, there will be a lot of intense negotiations coming over the next few days and weeks. It remains to be seen whether PSC manages to strike up an acceptable deal to form a left-wing coalition government, or whether the pro-independence groups will be able to put their increasing differences aside and club together for their joint cause. If that was to be the case, ERC would end up in charge and they may push for a repeat of the independence referendum held illegally in 2017 which led to the former regional premier Carles Puigdemont fleeing Spain and going into self-imposed exile in Brussels and other secessionist bid leaders being convicted by the Supreme Court of charges of sedition, among other things.
ERC candidate Pere Aragonè, said on Sunday evening after the results were in: “It’s time to resolve this conflict, it’s time to sit down and see how we can resolve all of this with a referendum.”
PSC candidate Salvador Illa meanwhile declared: “Change is coming in Catalonia and there’s no going back.”
Unsurprisingly, the health crisis had a considerable effect on voter turnout, with just 54 per cent of people eligible to vote doing so, fewer than the previous historical low in 1992. The postal service reported that applications for mail-in ballots had trebled compared to the last elections held in the region in 2017, another sign of voters’ reluctancy to take the risk of going to polling stations, while a quarter of the 82,251 people called at random to man stations asked to be excused from their duty.
This low turnout puts a slight dampener on the excitement of the pro-independence parties, as although they managed to gain more than half the votes, in all truth they received 630,000 fewer votes than they did in 2017 and just 26 per cent of eligible voters’ support.
However, the results have revealed that the independence movement is still alive and kicking.
A 20-day period now begins in order to constitute a new regional parliament. After that, the speaker will have 10 days to talk to the political parties and propose a presidential candidate, and an investiture debate will follow. The candidate will need an absolute majority in the first round of voting, or if that fails then a second round will take place 48 hours later in which a simple majority (more votes for than against) will suffice. If that also fails there are two months for votes to be repeated before new elections have to be called.