Catalan pro-independence parties have increased their parliamentary majority following elections in the autonomous region. The "unionist" Socialist Party took the largest share of the vote while the far-right Vox party won 11 seats.
The outcome of the Catalan elections saw pro-independence parties increasing their parliamentary majority. For the first time, they got more than half the votes, winning 51% – up from 47.5% in the last election in December 2017. Between them, they now hold 74 of the 135 seats in the Catalan parliament, an increase of four seats.
The elections was overshadowed by the Coronavirus pandemic. Only 53% of the voters actually went to the polls.
The Catalan Socialist party (PSC) finished first, winning 33 seats – up from 17 last time – and 23% of the vote. It was followed by the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left (ERC), which took 33 seats and 21.3% of the vote, and the centre-right, pro-independence Together for Catalonia party, which came third with 32 seats and 20% of the vote.
Vox, which is the third biggest party in the national parliament, won 11 seats, breaking into the Catalan parliament for the first time and taking more seats than its rivals in the conservative People’s party (PP) and the centre-right Citizens party combined. The election was a humiliating event for both parties: Citizens, which finished first in 2017 with 36 seats, dropped to just six, while the PP – for decades the hegemonic party of the Spanish right – slumped from four seats to three.
En Comú Podem, the coalition that includes the regional branch of the far-left anti-austerity Unidas Podemos, retained its eight seats, and the pro-independence anti-capitalist Popular Unity Candidacy won nine.
