Catalan election campaign kicks off, with pro-independence majority at risk

The road to the May 12 Catalan election officially got underway at midnight, with uncertainty ahead for the future of the pro-independence majority in the parliament.

During the February 2021 vote, pro-independence Junts per Catalunya, Esquerra Republicana, and CUP won a combined 74 seats in parliament, but three years and three months later, polls forecast they will fall short of the 68 seats needed for a majority in the chamber.

Recent polls say that the pro-Spanish unity Socialists, with Salvador Illa as their candidate, will win the election with 40 MPs of the 135 total. 

Illa also won in 2021 with the most votes, but a coalition agreement between Esquerra and Junts gave the presidency to Pere Aragonès, who is again running for ERC after leading the cabinet in the last term. 

Junts was part of the executive until October 2022, when a lack of confidence in their coalition partner prompted an internal vote for the party to exit the cabinet, making Esquerra the only governing party with a weak minority.

Like Illa and Aragonès, most party’s candidates are repeating from the last vote. Ignacio Garriga for the far-right Vox, Jéssica Albiach for left-wing Comuns Sumar, Carlos Carrizosa for liberal Ciudadanos, and Alejandro Fernández for the conservative People's Party all lead their parties in the 2021 election and will do so again in 2024.

While Carles Puigdemont ran for Junts in 2021, Laura Borràs was the party’s candidate for president of the Catalan government. Things will be slightly different this year, as former president Puigdemont announced his return to the frontline of Catalan politics just weeks after the snap election was announced.

Meanwhile, the Socialists launched their campaign to "move forward" from the independence push and "mark a new beginning" with a stable government. The idea is to take credit for being an ally of the government, such as reaching deals to back the last two budgets.

However, the 2024 spending plan did not go through as the left-wing En Comú Podem, which is now running as Comuns Sumar, voted against it. Their 'no' forced Aragonès to call for a snap election.

On the other hand, the conservative People's Party is looking for a comeback. Polls say it could gain around 10 seats more than its current 3 members in parliament.

Ahead of the campaign, they have been criticizing Sánchez's deals with pro-independence parties on terms such as the amnesty for those involved in the independence push.

But while the PP will gain votes, liberal Ciudadanos will try to resist and dispute what polls are forecasting. Back in 2017, the party was the most voted in the Catalan parliament, but in 2021, it only got 6, and it could now disappear from the chamber.

Far-right Vox, which broke in 2021, will consolidate its position, according to the latest polls published before the campaign started.

Spanish PM considering his future

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Wednesday night via a letter to citizens that he would take some time off public duties to consider his future. His words set the tone for the beginning of the Catalan election campaign.

Candidate for Esquerra Republicana Pere Aragonès criticized Sánchez for "being weak" against fascism and urged him to "face them."

"I am also in love with my wife, and I do not quit," the candidate for Esquerra said.

Meanwhile, Puigdemont warned of the candidate's, and the party he leads, Junts' awareness "of what the Spanish judiciary system, the police, and the patriotic press are like."

"We only cry at home," he added from Argelers, in Northern Catalonia, where he will campaign ahead of the vote on May 12, after leaving what has been his residence in Waterloo, Belgium, since he left Spain in October 2017 after the independence referendum.

On an opposite tone, Salvador Illa, running for the Catalan Socialists and former health minister during the Covid-19 pandemic under Sánchez's term, said that presidents are elected in the polls and not in offices," in a clear reference to the PM's letter.

Illa spoke in front of 1,600 people from Sabadell, just outside of Barcelona, and asked everyone to transform Sánchez's "individual resistance" into a "common one."

Left-wing Comuns Sumar, the Spanish government's junior coalition partner, also urged Sánchez to "resist" so they could stop the right-wing parties "that have gone mad."

"We have to resist, and we have to say: it is enough!" Jéssica Albiach said from Reus, in southern Catalonia.

Ciudadanos' candidate Carlos Carrizosa also addressed some words for the Spanish PM as he "would not have lasted longer than five minutes in Catalonia" during the independence push, especially around 2017.

During his speech, he said the party was the "most trustworthy" guarantee that they would "stop" the independence push.

The party believes they will be part of the chamber instead of recent polls. "We have always won against the polls. Of course, we will be part of the next Catalan parliament," Carrizosa said before adding that the pro-independence parties' "wet dream" of seeing Ciudadanos disappear will not happen.

Far-right Vox, which would have a slightly similar result than in 2021, centered the start of the campaign on migration and criminality.

The frontrunner, Ignacio Garriga, asked Catalans to "make a historical feat" by making Vox the leader of the Catalan government.

Far-left and pro-independence CUP started the campaign from Barcelona's Gràcia neighborhood and asked ERC and Junts to "stop setting their agendas based on Spain's politics," Laia Estrada said.

Their first speech was focused on social policies and announced that "we will not be part of a coalition government to legislate on others policies," Estrada added.

Similarly to what Pere Aragonès said, Alejandro Fernández for the conservative People's Party told Pedro Sánchez that he is also "in love with his wife."

"Three weeks ago, Puigdemont announced his plan to leave politics if he was not Catalan president. Yesterday, Pedro Sánchez wrote he was also thinking about leaving. They should not doubt it, they should do it," Fernández said from Castelldefels, just south of Barcelona.

"If they both leave on Monday, they will have all the support and understanding," he added.