EuropeAnalysis

Catalonia election: Socialists win big but face challenge of forming a government

Regional vote is a boost for Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez as pro-independence parties lose majority

Socialist candidate Salvador Illa greets supporters at PSC headquarters in Barcelona after the party won the Catalan elections on Sunday. Photograph: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

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Guy Hedgecoe in Madrid
Mon May 13 2024 - 16:48

The Socialist victory in Catalonia’s election on Sunday is a boost for Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, both within the north-eastern region and in the national political arena, even though forming a government will be a stiff challenge.

The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) made substantial gains to secure 42 seats in the 135-seat regional parliament. The runner-up was the hardline Together for Catalonia (JxCat) party of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, which made gains to win 35 seats, although pro-independence parties lost their long-standing majority in the local parliament.

“Catalonia is ready for a new future and to open an era of hope,” Mr Sánchez wrote on social media, as he hailed the result.

This win was particularly welcome for the prime minister after local elections last year saw his party lose control of swathes of territory to parties on the right. Also, his coalition government has faced constant attacks because of its parliamentary reliance on Catalan nationalists, including JxCat.

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In exchange for that support, Sánchez has pushed a controversial amnesty law through the Spanish parliament, lifting pending legal action for separatist activity against hundreds of Catalan nationalists, including Mr Puigdemont.

In an editorial, El País newspaper stated that despite the backlash against the amnesty, the Socialist victory and drop in support for nationalist parties “showed that [the law] has fulfilled its objective of eliminating pro-independence victimhood. A very serious political problem in Spain has started to fade.”

The territorial issue featured much less in the campaign than in previous elections, as other issues pushed it out of the spotlight, such as the region’s record-breaking drought and a housing crisis.

The Socialist candidate, former Spanish minister for health Salvador Illa, has declared his intention to form a government. The most obvious option would be a left-wing parliamentary alliance with the Comuns Sumar ticket and the pro-independence Republican Left pf Catalonia (ERC).

ERC suffered big losses after governing in a minority since 2022 and its candidate, incumbent regional president Pere Aragonès, resigned from frontline politics on Monday.

[ Former Catalan leader preaches independence from self-exile ]

Backing the Socialists, a unionist party, could risk alienating more of its voters. The alternative for ERC would be to attempt to form a new separatist coalition alongside its bitter rival, Mr Puigdemont’s JxCat. Mr Puigdemont, who has been living abroad since leading a failed independence bid in 2017 and who campaigned in advance of this election from the south of France, is expected to return to Spain in the coming weeks when the amnesty is approved. Returning for his own investiture as Catalan president would be an outcome he and his supporters can only have dreamed of just a few months ago.

Exiled Catalan separatist leader and founder of the Together for Catalonia party Carles Puigdemont at the party's headquarters in southwestern France on Sunday. Photograph: Matthieu Rondel/AFP via Getty Images

“We can gather a coherent majority, not an absolute majority, but one which is broader than that of Illa,” said Mr Puigdemont, as he appealed to ERC to join him.

However, parliamentary arithmetic suggests such a plan is extremely ambitious. Also, the arrival of a new far-right separatist party, Catalan Alliance, with two seats, further complicates the nationalist dynamic.

With the Vox party maintaining its 11 seats, Catalonia now has two far-right parties in its parliament. The biggest winner on the right, however, was the conservative Popular Party (PP), which capitalised on the collapse of Ciudadanos to quintuple its representation with 15 seats.

Negotiations for the formation of a new Catalan government are likely to be lengthy and tortuous. The biggest incentive the parties involved have to reach a consensus is that the alternative is a repeat election.

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