The Catalan separatists have an absolute majority …

From Madrid

The Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC) won the regional elections on Sunday in this autonomous community, the second most populous in Spain, but except surprise, he will not be able to govern. Despite the almost doubling of the number of seats won four years ago (from 17 to 33), the socialists failed to break the nationalist majority which, by adding the deputies of its different forces, could maintain control of the Generalitat (autonomous government).

Desirous of breaking the secessionist dynamic which provoked a serious institutional crisis in Spain, el President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, a month ago, opted for a high-risk move: he reshaped his cabinet in the midst of a pandemic and entrusted his Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, with the difficult task of resuscitating a discouraged CPS., the formation federated with the PSOE, which had chained two elections in historic lows.

The result is good (first position with 23% of the vote and 33 seats), but insufficient. Illa, a Catalan philosophy graduate who built a reputation as a politician for dialogue during his tenure as minister, succeeded in placing the PSC as the most voted formation, but did not break with the secessionist majority. Despite the fact that he has practically no possibility, the socialist candidate announced this evening that he would appear before Parliament to ask to be invested as president of the Generalitat.

However, it is highly likely that there will be a nationalist government again. The two dominant forces in this space -Esquerra Republicana (ERC) and JuntsxCat-, which have shared the government for four years, are practically linked Although the leftist formation managed to reverse the result of four years ago and stood slightly above the conservative force led from the Belgian city of Waterloo by the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who took escaped after the unilateral declaration of independence that ended with nine pro-independence leaders in prison.

The race for the head of the independence bloc was of vital importance, as if the two forces agree again, the presidency would correspond to the ERC, which obtained 21% and 33 deputies against 20% and 32 seats for JuntsxCat.

This pact between separatists is considered the first option in the post-electoral panorama, despite the fact that in recent months the terrible relations with which the two forces ended the legislature were evident. In this way, the ERC candidate, Pere Aragonés, who ended his term as president after his departure due to a conviction for disqualification of his predecessor Quim Torra (JuntsxCat), is in the process of becoming the future president of the Generalitat . Aragonés announced tonight that the new stage would be led by the left-wing independence movement and asked Pedro Sánchez for amnesty for politicians convicted of the illegal declaration of independence.

The two secessionist forces add 65 seats, three from the absolute majority, Therefore, they must have the support of the Popular Unity Candidature -CUP (Left Assembly and Independence) which has practically doubled its results from four years ago, from four to nine. In total, the independence forces, which benefited from a high abstention rate (over 46%), obtained 51% of the votes and 74 seats in a parliament of 135

The other option the ERC would have is a left pact, less likely but not impossible. For that, we would need the support of the PSC, with more votes but the same number of seats (33), and with the eight of En Comú Podem, the Catalan version of Podemos, stagnating at less than 7% of the votes. .

In the space of the right, the irruption of the extreme right caused an earthquake. Vox won 11 seats by getting more than seven percent of the vote and relegated Ciudadanos so much that being the most voted party in 2017 with almost 25 percent of the vote, it dropped to seventh and lost 30 of its 36 parliamentarians. Worse still, the Popular Party, which continues in free fall and remains with only three deputies, one less than those obtained in 2017.