Landslide Socialist win in Spanish election in Catalonia

The Socialists were by far the most-voted party in the Spanish election in Catalonia this Sunday.

While the left-wing unionist party is the second-most voted in Spain after the People's Party, the Socialists have drastically improved their results in Catalonia with 19 seats compared to the 12 they won in the last election in November 2019.  

The Socialists were the most-voted party in three of Catalonia's four provinces - Barcelona, Tarragona, and Lleida - and have as many MPs in Girona as Junts per Catalunya. 

"Catalonia was key and decisive in stopping the right-wing bloc," Meritxell Batet, the Socialist candidate in Catalonia, commented after the results came in. "The territory gave support to coexistence, to dialogue, and to progress."

 

 

Pro-independence parties lose 770,000 votes

It has not been a good night for pro-independence parties, who have lost over 770,000 votes, and although Sumar, Esquerra Republicana, and Junts won 7 seats each, Sumar was the second-most voted party in Catalonia with 25,000 more ballots than Esquerra. 

Sumar, the newly founded Spain-wide coalition to the left of the Socialists did not run four years ago, but anti-austerity En Comú Podem, one of its members, also won 7 seats back then. 

Esquerra, the left-wing pro-independence party in power in Catalonia, is down 6 seats compared to 2019 when it won 13. 

Junts, meanwhile, lost one of the eight seats it had in a joint candidacy with PDeCat.

While more people voted for the People's Party in Catalonia than Esquerra or Junts, because of how the D'Hont seat allocation method works, the conservatives only have 2 more seats than in 2019, 6.

Vox remains the same with 2 seats, while CUP has lost the only 2 MPs it had, and PDeCat did not win any at all. 

Junts, decisive role in election of PM

Pro-independence Junts now hold an important role in the election of the next possible left-wing Spanish Prime Minister. 

Their seven seats, one less than in the last Spanish election, could be decisive when it comes to getting a majority in Congress. 

However, Miriam Nogueras, the candidate for Barcelona, stated that they will not elect Pedro Sánchez "in exchange for nothing". 

Esquerra highlights importance of indy parties

Although the share of the population that voted for Esquerra went down 9.42 percentage points, party candidate Gabriel Rufián celebrated that his party obtained more votes than Junts. 

He also stressed the importance of the independence movement in the election, arguing that the Spanish left-wing bloc now faces a "dilemma."

"If they want to govern in their country, they will have to respect ours," he told Esquerra supports after the count came in. 

PDeCAT accepts defeat

PDeCAT, the Catalan European Democratic Party, got 0.8% of the vote in Catalonia and ended the night as the 9th most-voted political force in the Spanish election. 

The party was hoping to recover the status it had before the Catalan independence push. 

Roger Montañola, the candidate for PDeCAT in Barcelona, accepted his party's defeat: "These are really bad results, it is an unquestionable loss."

CUP lose their 2 seats

Far-left pro-independence CUP has stayed out of Congress their second time running for a Spanish election. 

Albert Botran, the candidate for Barcelona, regrets that there is "no space for the left-oriented and anti-fascist independence movement" but assures that they will continue working on other areas and therefore their role is not over.

Meanwhile, the People's Party announced that they are "home of the Constitution, there is no other party in Catalonia that will defend the Constitution like us," Nacho Martín Blanco, People's Party candidate in Catalonia, said.