A large proportion of Catalan supporters of sovereignty have turned their backs on the parliamentarianism of the institutions of the Spanish state, which is perceived as an occupying power, and did not take part in the elections to the Catalan parliament on 12 May 2024. With a voter turnout of just 57.9%, this led to the following election result, in which there was no «winner»:

The Spanish Social Democrats (PSC), led by Salvador Illa, received 872,959 votes and have 42 seats. The party is in favour of Spanish unity and was partly responsible for the unconstitutional coup d'état from above in October 2017.

The liberal Junts party of legitimate Catalan President Carles Puigdemont only managed 35 seats. Although this represents an increase of three seats and shows that the electorate of this party has remained loyal to Carles Puigdemont, it is the only party of the Catalan supporters of sovereignty that was able to record an increase despite the massive abstention of the sovereignty camp, while the other democratic parties in favour of Catalonia's sovereignty suffered significant losses.

The third force, with only 20 seats, was the social democratic party Esquerra Republicana (ERC), which, although verbally in favour of Catalan independence and the establishment of a Catalan republic, apparently gave some of its voters the impression that it was not (or no longer) serious about this. In particular, it appears to have been a clear vote of no confidence in party leader Dr Oriol Junqueras, who nevertheless intends to continue to lead his party in opposition.

The politically right-wing Partido Popular (PP), which is known for its prominent representatives occasionally publicly praising fascism and flirting with fascist ideas, is the real (relative) winner of the election. It has quintupled its previous number of seats from just three to fifteen. That is a remarkable result. Traditionally, this party receives votes in particular from Spaniards who have immigrated to Catalonia or their descendants.

The Vox party, which makes no secret of its closeness to fascism and advocates such radical demands that it would probably be banned in other countries, won eleven seats.

The green-left party Comuns Sumar has only six seats.

The party «Candidatura d'Unitat Popular - Defensem la Terra» (CUP), which represents partly radical left-wing and ecologicist positions and is resolutely in favour of Catalonia's sovereignty in the form of an independent republic, has only four seats in the Catalan parliament.

The radical right-wing identitarian Catalan party Aliança Catalana has two seats.

With a total of 135 seats, the absolute majority is 68 MPs. No group reaches this number. There will therefore either be a minority government or new elections in October 2024.

Democratic parties will not work together with the partly neo-fascist pro-Spanish party Vox and the radical right-wing and Islamophobic Aliança Catalana. These two opposing parties have a combined total of 13 votes.

Of the remaining 122 votes, the Esquerra Republicana party has already decided to go into opposition. It would appear that this party is banking on new elections on the one hand and wants to force the withdrawal of its political rival Carles Puigdemont from politics on the other. This leaves a theoretical 102 votes for the formation of a government.

The Partido Popular, with its fifteen votes, has declared that it will support neither the Socialists under Salvador Illa nor the Junts party led by President Puigdemont. This leaves only 87 votes, which would have to result in a majority of 68 votes to enable a stable government.

A grand coalition of the Social Democrats (PSC with 42 votes) and the sovereignty party Junts (35 votes), which would almost reach the required majority, seems out of the question. The PSC is likely to speculate on the six votes of the Comuns Sumar alliance, which would give it 48 votes. If Salvador Illa succeeds in gaining the support of the equally left-wing Esquerra Republicana party with its 20 votes, he could achieve the required majority of 68 votes. However, this would in all likelihood be tantamount to political suicide for ERC, as the majority of the electorate would probably not forgive this party such a turnaround. The politically versatile Oriol Junqueras would be quite capable of such a manoeuvre on the grounds that it is about implementing left-wing positions and social justice. He could thus support a minority government of PSC and Comuns Sumar without ERC being formally part of it.

Despite all political differences, President Puigdemont can in principle hope for the support of the CUP, which is united with his party on the issue of Catalonia's sovereignty, but this would only give him 39 votes. Nevertheless, he would be able to form a by no means stable minority government along the lines of the current Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the loser of the last Spanish elections, if other parties such as the Social Democrats and ERC abstained in the second round of voting for the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya. As the Spanish social democratic minority government is crucially dependent on his Junts party and could be brought down by it at any time, it cannot be ruled out that the Spanish Prime Minister, who is known for his unconditional quest for power, could sacrifice the interests of the Catalan branch of his party at the expense of the PSC's ability to govern Spain as a whole. It seems more likely, however, that the PSC will try to give the impression of taking over the government in Catalonia, but will ultimately aim for new elections in October and hope that an even larger proportion of those in favour of sovereignty will not then take part in the election.

Contrary to much of the reporting in the international press, the following result can therefore be stated for the time being:

1. two of the parties advocating Catalonia's sovereignty (ERC and CUP) did not succeed in motivating a large proportion of their electorate to participate in the election on 12 May 2024. Only President Puigdemont was able to achieve a better result with his Junts party than in the last elections.

2. The main loser in these elections was the existing parliamentary system. There is a danger that a smaller section of those in favour of independence, for whom the parliamentary system of Spain, perceived as an occupying state, is no longer relevant, will resort to violence. The three sovereignty parties have always advocated a non-violent way of achieving Catalan sovereignty and warn against any use of violence. However, they have lost their previous influence over a significant part of the sovereignty movement. This tends to happen anywhere in the world where the human right to self-determination is massively violated, as it has been in the Kingdom of Spain since October 2017. The United Nations has long warned of the negative medium and long-term consequences of violating the human right to self-determination.

3. Due to the abstention of a large part of the Catalan sovereignty movement, the voting weight of voters in favour of Spanish unity, right-wing, radical right-wing and neo-fascist positions was higher than in all previous parliamentary elections in Catalonia. In view of the distribution of seats, the result is a clear shift to the right in the Catalan parliament.

4. There will either be a minority government (formed by whomever), which will have to govern with changing majorities and difficult compromises, or, as seems more likely, new elections in October, which could lead to an even more radical result. The PP, Vox and Alliança Catalana parties in particular are likely to see their seats increase in the event of new elections if abstention from the camp of Catalan sovereignty supporters increases even further. If Dr Oriol Junqueras does not draw the conclusion from the election result to leave the leadership of his party to others in future, a further reduction in the number of ERC seats in particular can be expected.

A prominent politician on the Spanish right, Xavier García Albiol, summed it up like no other on Platform X with a commentary in Spanish from 14 May 2024 that has already been viewed several hundred thousand times in just one day:

«Escucho y leo análisis del resultado de las elecciones que para mi o son apresurados o simplistas y lo digo tirándome piedras en mi propio tejado ideológico. Quién crea o piense que el independentismo ha desaparecido por arte de magia o de @sanchezcastejon se equivoca: el independentismo no ha ido a votar, pero el independentismo sigue ahí.»

«I hear and read analyses of the election results that, for me, are either premature or simplistic, and I say this despite throwing stones at my own ideological camp. Those who believe or think that independence has disappeared by magic or by @sanchezcastejon [=Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain] are wrong: the independence movement has not gone to the polls, but the independence movement is still there.»

It is in the interests of Catalonia, Spain and the entire European Union to counter the emerging radicalisation of parts of the independence movement. The only way to maintain peace and prevent violence is to put an end to the Spanish state's repressive measures against Catalonia and Catalans, to unconditionally guarantee the fundamental and human rights of the Catalan people and for Spain to be prepared to negotiate seriously on holding an internationally supervised, binding referendum on the question of whether Catalonia should become an independent state in the form of a republic or not.

https://overton-magazin.de/top-story/auch-katalonien-rueckt-nach-rechts/