For the first time since 1980, parties opposing Catalonia’s independence from Spain have the support of a majority of voters in the region. Elections last Sunday saw around 54% of the electorate return candidates from non-separatist parties across the political spectrum. The Socialist party scored a momentous victory for the first time.
The vote appears to draw a line under a tumultuous decade marked by a 2017 rush to independence that led to an illegal referendum, a unilateral declaration of independence, mass protest and the country’s worst constitutional crisis since the restoration of democracy in 1975.
The latest result shows that most Catalans don’t want a separate Catalan republic. Indeed, separatism was already in decline before this vote, but this is the first time the shift in opinion will be reflected clearly in the Catalan parliament. The vote aligned closely with new polling data gathered in February revealing that around 51% of the region’s population opposes independence, with 41% in favour and the remaining 8% either undecided or unresponsive.
The Catalan autonomous region was created after the end of the Franco dictatorship – Franco largely suppressed regional autonomy. Today Catalonia, even more than the other autonomous Spanish regions, has considerable powers in healthcare, security and education.
Despite autonomy, support for Catalan independence from Spain had steadily grown, reaching 49% in 2017. Now, only around 30% of the population unambiguously tick an “independent state” as the best option for Catalonia when pollsters offer a range of nuanced hypothetical outcomes including independence within a federal Spain. Turnout was low in last Sunday’s vote: around 58%, compared with the 80% record of 2017. And this was most pronounced in areas that favour independence-supporting parties, as my colleagues at elDiario.es showed.
Overall what the result points to is that the so-called procés (the “process” that separatist politicians embarked on to make Catalonia independent) may be dead, even if nationalist sentiment remains part of the culture and politics in Catalonia, as does the desire to break away from the rest of Spain.
Family origin remains the most significant predictor of secessionist sympathies, according to an analysis from El País. Older, wealthier people, residents of rural communities and individuals with multi-generational ties to Catalonia tend to be more supportive of independence.
Attachment to Catalan language and culture, which is also promoted by regional media and the public education system, is still very strong. Catalan identity is, however, now more inclusive of other identities. The percentage of citizens who say they feel “only Catalan” has declined from 29% in 2017 to the current 17%, while the share of those who say they feel both Catalan and Spanish has jumped from 35% to 44%.
So what has changed since 2017? Several factors contribute to this evolving landscape, including a widespread sense of disillusionment following the chaotic aftermath of the 2017 vote, which laid bare the practical consequences of a forced and potentially botched breakaway.
Many people were alarmed by the lack of planning for independence and transparency surrounding the secessionists’ plans that became evident in 2017. Carles Puigdemont, president of Catalonia at the time and now leader of the rightwing Junts party, declared unilateral independence after a vote with no legal consequences and a few seconds later announced it could not be applied. Then, as he was suspended by the national government, he fled the country, ending up in Brussels, to avoid the legal consequences of his actions. Some of his colleagues in government were tried and went to jail. A fractured society suffered years of protests and conflict that permeated families, workplaces and public debates in Catalonia and across Spain.
Since then, concerns about the independence issue have been replaced in most people’s minds by pressing global problems (from the pandemic to the threat of war) and local ones such as a crisis in public services provision and a prolonged drought. Tensions between the opposing camps in the independence debate have declined too. In pardoning the jailed politicians the central government led by Pedro Sánchez has adopted a more conciliatory approach than the conservative administration led by his predecessor Mariano Rajoy. On the Catalan side, new separatist leaders, particularly Pere Aragonès from the leftist ERC, have also adopted a more pragmatic, conciliatory tone.
Sánchez’s amnesty law would include the still fugitive and exiled Puigdemont in exchange for his party’s support in the Spanish parliament. This has reignited the controversy, but mostly outside Catalonia. Within the region, most people either support the amnesty or don’t care about it. Sánchez’s strategy seems to be paying off in normalising a dysfunctional relationship. Local trains, unaffordable housing, school performance, unsustainable tourism and immigration were more prominent issues in the regional elections than the amnesty.
The Socialist leader, Salvador Illa, the new winner in Catalonia, is probably well suited to lead a more inclusive era of politics. A mild-mannered former health secretary in the Spanish government during the pandemic who has a background in philosophy and worked in local government in Barcelona for years, Illa promised after his victory, in Spanish, to include all Catalans, “no matter what they think, no matter what language they speak, no matter where they live and no matter what they come from”. Not the usual message you hear from politicians in Catalonia.
Still, it’s not clear whether he will manage to secure a majority in the Catalan parliament, where eight parties are represented and where rightwing parties have advanced, including a new far-right, Islamophobic pro-independence party.
Puigdemont is still making an unlikely bid to become president of Catalonia, perhaps in exchange for supporting Sánchez’s national government. Often lucky, Sánchez may pull it off somehow. But rosier times in Catalonia could come at the expense of harder horse-trading in Madrid. Political deadlock and another election in Catalonia is still possible despite Illa’s topping the poll.
Nevertheless, politics now reflects what reality on the ground has shown for a long time, and not just in Catalonia. Most people don’t want political disruption, let alone revolution. They distrust sovereigntist and isolationist fantasies, and have limited interest in partisan, divisive battles. Politicians, including messianic leaders, should acknowledge that.
María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain
