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The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) received the largest number of votes in the Catalan elections. After counting more than 99 percent of the votes, El Salvador Illa’s party won 42 seats out of 135 seats. Reports Country At night from Sunday to Monday. This is much more than in 2021 (33) and from the separatist Junts party (35 seats). The Esquerra Republica de Catalunya (ERC, Catalan Republican Left) independence party has to make a major concession: 13 seats down from 33 in 2021.
The result was a victory for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose PSOE party belongs to the Socialist Party of Socialism, and a loss for the separatist bloc. The independence parties have been in power in Catalonia in their various formations for more than ten consecutive years. Now, the four different parties together do not appear to have secured enough votes to obtain a majority of at least 68 seats.
Sanchez congratulated Salvador Illa on “this historic result achieved in Catalonia.” Message on X. “We socialists have once again become the supreme power.”
Coalition building will be necessary in any case. Despite the huge loss, the role of the ERC is far from over, compared to the situation of the VVD in the Netherlands. Everything is still possible: from a minority government to new elections. The Socialist Coalition Party appears to favor forming a coalition with the Council of European Reform and the left-wing Progressive Communards. Based on 95% of the votes, these three parties appear to have exactly 68 seats.
PP also scored a big win
One of Sánchez’s most aggressive opposition parties, the right-wing conservative Popular Party, has also gained significant ground. The People’s Party jumped from 3 to 15 seats, while the far-right Vox Party retained 11 seats. Both parties are waging intense opposition at the national level against Sánchez, who suddenly challenged his position late last month after his wife became the target of a right-wing smear campaign – but remained in office after five days of “careful consideration.”
Sánchez formed a politically sensitive coalition in 2021 with Gantz, the Catalan separatist party led by Carles Puigdemont, which declared Catalan independence after an illegal referendum in 2017. As part of this agreement, Sánchez promised to pardon Puigdemont and other convicted separatists, which was a Red cloth for the opposition.
