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Catalan pro-independence parties win majority in regional parliament

Monday, 15 February 2021 2:25 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 15 February 2021 2:25 PM ]

Kusai Kedri
Press TV, Barcelona

Catalan pro-independence parties won enough seats in region’s parliament on Sunday to strengthen their majority. In an election overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic, for the first time, pro-independence parties took more than half the votes, winning 51 percent of the ballots.

Catalonia's regional president delivered his first public speech late Sunday, sending a short but forceful message to Spain and the EU.

The Catalan Socialist party finished first, winning 33 seats. It was followed by the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left, which also secured 33 seats, and the center-right Together for Catalonia party, which won 32 seats. Together, the three parties got 74 seats of the 135-seat parliament.

Anti-independence party Ciudadanos, however, suffered a major loss in the recent election. The largest single party in the 2017 election, this time handed over most of its seats to the socialists and the far-right party Vox.

Spain's populist far-right Vox made its first entry to Catalonia's parliament with 11 seats, overtaking both the Spanish conservatives and center-right Ciudadanos who received 3 and 6 seats, respectively.

The pro-independence parties’ victory comes while over the past four years, the Republican Left led by jailed leader Oriol Junqueras has grown further apart from its center-right ally Together for Catalonia, which is led by former regional president in exile Carles Puigdemont. Junqueras is seen as a moderate who favors a negotiated solution with the central government in Madrid while Puigdemont seems to advocate a more confrontational approach.

The pro-independence parties may have cemented their grip on parliament but the challenges ahead of them are manifold ranging from their ability to put their differences aside in order to form a government to dealing with their main socialist rival, and the rising populist far-right.

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