Socialists poised to win Catalan elections as separatists neck-and-neck – poll
The Socialist Party (PSOE/PSC/S&D) candidate and former Spanish health minister Salvador Illa is on course to win the snap elections in Catalonia on 12 May, while the two main separatist forces, the right-wing JxCat and the left-wing ERC, could face a tough fight for second place, a new poll revealed on Tuesday shows.
The Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC) would win 38 seats (27.1%), former regional president Carles Puigdemont’s right-wing separatist party Together for Catalonia (JxCat) 33, and its left-wing rival Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) 27, according to the 4dB poll published for El País and Cadena SER radio.
The Catalan parliament has 135 deputies, and the majority has 68 seats.
According to the poll, Spain’s Partido Popular (EPP), the main opposition force to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE) in Madrid, would get a good result, rising from three seats to 13.
The far-right VOX party, the third force in Madrid, would lose two seats and gain nine.
The poll also shows that the far-left Catalunya en Comú party — pro-independence but not separatist – and the left-wing pro-independence Candidatura de Unidad Popular (CUP) party would win seven seats each.
Although Illa has been the favourite in almost all previous polls, the 40dB poll warns that he is “not guaranteed” to become the next president of the regional government, the Generalitat, a post currently held by Pere Aragonès (ERC).
According to the study, for the Socialist candidate to become president of Catalonia, he would need the support or abstention of either JxCat or ERC.
At the same time, the centre-liberal Ciudadanos (Citizens) party is set to disappear from the Catalan parliament after being the most voted-for party in the last elections of 2017 – the year there was a secessionist attempt in the region.
Although 40.3% of those polled believe that the current government in Catalonia-a coalition of ERC and JxCat-has done a “bad or very bad” job over the past three years, the poll shows that the “separatist alliance” is still preferred by the majority of Catalans.
Regarding who would make the best president of the Generalitat, Illa and former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont tied with 19.5%, leaving Aragonès in third place.
Campaigning begins on Friday amid the controversial amnesty law, which the PP and VOX say is unconstitutional, and the dispute between the two main Catalan separatist forces.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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