The scenarios that seemed impossible a few years ago became real yesterday evening as a result of the elections to the Catalan Parliament. Loss of the independence majority: the sum of Junts, ERC and CUP goes from 74 to 59 deputies. Left descent: the sum of ERC, CUP and Comunen goes from 50 to 30 Members. A huge increase in Spanish ultra: the sum of PP and Vox goes from 14 to 26 Members. And finally, for the first time, a independence party with clearly xenophobic postulates is incorporated into the Chamber – two seats for the Catalan Alliance.
On 12 May, a clear winner was Salvador Illa (PSC), with 42 seats. But the meticulous electoral arithmetic and the management of the results that political parties can do draw a future full of doubts. In the short term, no agreement is foreseen, as the European election campaign will begin in ten days, and by 30 May the Spanish Congress will be convened to vote on the final adoption of the Amnesty Act. All possible alliances have difficult handicaps to overcome.
"The loss of the independence majority; the fall of the left; and the strong increase of Spanish ultra
The words of President Pere Aragones, after affirming the "very bad results" of the Republicans (keeping only 20 of the 33 Members), suggest that Salvador will not support the presidency of Illa and Carles Puigdemonte: "From ERC we will accept the will of the citizens, we will work to continue our political project and we will do it from the opposition". From the municipality of Argelers, in Northern Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont (Junts) made it clear that its 35 armchairs will not serve to agree with the PSC, threw the ball into the ERC roof and did not rule out new elections: "We are in time to build a strong government with exclusively Catalan obedience. We are in time to avoid the electoral repetition that would be bad news for Catalan citizens." And he did not miss the opportunity to highlight an idea that can be expressed in the coming days: the distance between Junts and PSC is no greater than that between PP and PSOE in the Spanish Congress. Is Puigdemont asking the PSOE to approve a government of the Boards in the Generalitat in exchange for ensuring the stability of Pedro Sánchez in Madrid?
Can govern Spain
But there are still more options on the table, which seem absolutely crazy but are not arithmetically impossible. In Telemadrid, a graph showed a government of the Generalitat presided over by Illa, but with the parliamentary support of the PP (15) and Vox (11). The sum of parliamentarians from the three parties is 68 Members, one above the absolute majority. But in state logic, is it possible? If we look at the holders of the portals of the so-called facade, Salvador Illa has won, but it has remained in the hands of independence. According to this logic, the right and the far right do not seem to want to facilitate access to the Generalitat Palace.
The Left have generally been very weakened (if 30 Members, 20 Republicans, 4 CUP and Comunen 6 are added)
The Left, moreover, have been largely weakened (if they add up to 30 total Members, 20 Republicans, 4 from the CUP and Comunen 6), and as for the composition of the government, they will always depend on the most right-wing parties of the social axis: clearly, the old socialization [sense arising from the merger of Convergència i Unión and PSC]. Laia Estrada, head of the CUP list, valued it as "Thanks to the thousands of people who voted for us. We have not had good results and the picture that remains is worrying, with a more right-wing and Spanish parliament than ever before. For our part, we will continue to fight for the social and national rights of our people." Jéssica Albiach, from Comuneta, maintained hope and saw possible a leftist government led by Illa: "In the face of the rise of the right and the tip of the right, the progressives of this country expect us to sit immediately and agree".
Exchange between ulters
From Ripoll, the far-right right-wing Silvia Orriols (Catalan Alliance) recognized that she will not have power in the arithmetic generated in the elections, but stated that “we now have the speaker we wanted and needed thanks to the 118,000 votes we have obtained.” Whoever is also mayor of Ripoll, in violation of the party’s internal rules, as Critico published it, will double his office and have a Deputy Act. The same goes for the list head of Lleida. In the district of Barcelona they did not manage to exceed the minimum limit to obtain a seat: they obtained the marginal protection of Barcelones and Baix Llobregat, which compensated for the good result obtained in Berguedà, Lluçanès, Bages and Osona. In the district of Tarragona the results were modest in all regions, but the failures in Tarragones, Baix Penedes and Terra Alta prevented the achievement of a deputy.
Ciutadans, a party that won a million votes in 2017 and won elections, lags behind PACMA with 22,481 votes. At a surreal press conference, Carlos Carrizosa, Vox or the PP announced that, along with the few party leaders who have not yet signed, they would be presenting themselves to the next elections. However, the current state leadership of the party has in its hand the closure of the parody and the final termination of the party following the electoral failures in Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia, but above all the loss of the financial protection of the IBEX-35.
If negotiations are blocked in the Catalan Parliament and elections are reconvened, the date may be in mid-October.
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