Photo: Collected
Catalonia's pro-independence parties can piece together a coalition government in the autonomous region despite losing their majority in Sunday's (12 May) elections, leader of the separatist Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party and former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has said.
In March, Catalan President Pere Aragones called early parliamentary elections for May 12 after the region's parliament rejected the 2024 budget. Later that month, Puigdemont, who lives in exile, announced his candidacy to be president of Catalonia in the snap elections.
"We are in a position to create a solid government, controlled exclusively by Catalans, and that is what we will devote the next several hours to, in order to have a consistent government with good leadership in parliament and avoid rerun elections, which would be bad news for the country," Puigdemont told a press conference, held in France and broadcast by his party.
The Socialists' Party of Catalonia, which backs Spanish unity, won the most seats in the Catalan parliament, 42 out of 135, according to near-final results. Meanwhile, the two key pro-Catalan independence parties, Junts per Catalunya and the Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya), secured 35 and 20 seats respectively. The right-wing People's Party got 15 seats, while the far-right Vox party secured 11.
As none of the parties clinched enough seats to govern the region on their own, they are expected to start coalition talks.
On October 1, 2017, an unauthorized independence referendum was held in Catalonia at the initiative of the region's Generalitat led by Puigdemont. Based on the results of the vote, in which 90% of citizens voted in favor of seceding from Spain, the Catalan parliament declared the region an independent country. This prompted the Spanish government to introduce direct rule in Catalonia and dissolve its parliament, after which a number of senior Catalan officials, including Puigdemont, fled the country.
Catalan independence leaders were put on national and European wanted lists. In May 2019, Puigdemont and his associates Carla Ponsati and Toni Comin were elected to the European Parliament, thereby obtaining parliamentary immunity. Spanish authorities then requested suspension of their immunity, which was done by the European Parliament in March 2021. However, in May 2022, the EU's General Court upheld Puigdemont and his associates' claims, restoring their immunity.
In mid-March, the Spanish parliament passed the amnesty bill enabling the authorities to forgive Catalan separatists for their actions in 2017, which was done in exchange for their support for the socialist parties' coalition government.
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