The Catalonia Election Results and Reactions

The elections in Catalonia have been held and the results are in: PSC (PSOE) won the most seats with 33, followed closely by two independent parties, the ERC and the Junts per Catalunya, with 33 and 32. After them came the Vox with 11, the independent (and radical) CUP with 9, Podem with 8, Ciudadanos with 6 and the PP with just 3.

Apart from the surprise of the Independent parties winning the majority from the Constitutionalists with 74 to 61 (and the announcement by them earlier last week that they wouldn’t form a government with the PSC come what may), an increase over 2017 of four, there were some other shocks.

The Ciudadanos, the largest party in the 2017 Catalonian regional elections, fell from 36 to just 6, losing 86% of their 2017 voters, although the disappointed party leader Inés Arrimadas said on Monday that she’ll soldier on.

The PP (who claim that they were at a disadvantage with the current crop of corruption cases before the courts in Madrid), fell from last place in 2017 with four to last place this past weekend with just three (technically speaking, as some small parties behind them got no seats at all).

The PSC rose from 17 to 33, which will bring satisfaction to the government in Madrid.

Lastly, Vox went from nowhere to 11, which will bring either elation or deep gloom to many across Spain.

Ciudadanos voters evidently migrated to the PSC or to Vox – but none of them crossed to the PP.

The reaction from the ex-president of the Generalitat Quim Torra (with 51% of the vote supporting the independent parties) was a bit of justifiable hyperbole ‘¡rotunda victoria independentista! – a huge victory for independence!’.

One thing will come out – the number of abstentions. Only 54% voted on Sunday. These will have been partially caused by the pandemic, but it was the courts who insisted on the elections taking place this past Sunday rather than postponing them, as the Generalitat had wanted, until May 30th.

In Madrid, despite the foreseen shock of an Independent win, the Government must be quite pleased. The socialist candidate did well, increasing the party share from 17 to 33 deputies, the Ciudadanos are dead in the water and Pablo Casado is looking very foolish with just three deputies.  But then, could the Catalonian parliamentarians in Madrid – following a fresh pro-independence government in Barcelona – drop their support for the PSOE/Podemos national Government coalition?

Here’s a piece from an old Spanish Shilling, previous to the 2017 election results, which looks at the cost to Spain of the losable treasure of the Independent Catalonian Republic.