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Barça put four past Malaga in the last game of the season and hit the 100 point mark. The Catalans were three up after a quarter of an hour thanks to goals from Villa, Cesc and Montoya. Iniesta got the fourth in the second half before Morales got a consolation goal for Malaga. Abidal came on to a standing ovation on 75 minutes for his final minutes as a Barça player.

As opposed to the rest of Spain, the PP is a small party within Catalonia. In the last Catalan elections, they got their best results ever, increasing from 14 to 18 seats in the 135-seat Catalan Parliament and obtaining 12.37% of the votes. In the last elections, the Catalan branch of the PP , led by Alícia Sánchez-Camacho, focused on immigration and the economic crisis. Now, while they are running the Spanish Government and have negotiated many austerity measures in Catalonia, the PP is focusing on fighting the “independence delirium”, as they call it. All its leaders, including Rajoy, are participating intensively in the campaign. The PP presents itself as the “useful vote” to stop Catalonia’s self-determination process, as they think of Spain as not being a pluri-national state. Polls give them between 16 and 19 MPs and they could become the second largest party in the Catalan Parliament.

Elections for the Catalan Parliament, which will elect the next President of the Catalan Government, are to be held on the 25th of November. The two-week electoral campaign has started, with Catalonia’s independence as the main topic of debate, while opposition parties are trying to put the budget cuts and the recovery from the economic crisis upfront. On Thursday, minutes before midnight, political parties officially kicked off the campaign, although the race started a month and a half ago, when the Catalan President, Artur Mas, called for early elections. Surveys indicate that Mas’ party, the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), will win the elections again, with improved results and close to an absolute majority. Catalonia’s political map may change with the Socialist Party likely to drop.