“Catalonia is ready to realize a new future and open a time of hope”, celebrated Pedro Sánchez on Sunday night, after personally congratulating Salvador Illa on his electoral victory. “The socialists are once again the first force. From today, a new stage opens in Catalonia to improve the lives of citizens, expand rights and strengthen coexistence”, the President of the Government celebrated.
“Salvador Illa has obtained an incontestable victory,” the spokesperson for the PSOE executive, Esther Peña, highlighted from Ferraz. “A historic result,” she stressed, after the PSC candidate has added 850,000 votes, almost 28% of the total, which will be transformed into 42 seats in the Parliament. And without an alternative independence majority. “For the first time in 40 years, independence and nationalism do not have an absolute majority in the Parliament of Catalonia,” Peña warned.
“Today, Pedro Sánchez’s policies have shown that we socialists were on the right path, that taking a path to recover coexistence in Catalonia was clearly worth it,” said the socialist leader. And she has warned that these elections leave another confirmation: “It has become clear that the right was the great factory of independentists.”
“First you have to count votes and seats, and then move well,” prescribed a veteran socialist leader in the face of a heart-stopping electoral scrutiny that, at the PSOE headquarters in Ferraz, some ironically predicted would lead to a night that was more than historic. , hysterical. Not in vain, Pedro Sánchez’s determined bet that, this time, Salvador Illa would manage to recover the presidency of the Generalitat for the PSC after almost three decades, had skyrocketed expectations… which could have accentuated frustrations if The arrow missed the target.
At the same time, however, the complexity of the endeavor was hidden from no one, provided that, to begin with, the polls closed the way to an independence majority. And, in turn, the electoral result could have a very direct impact on Sánchez’s mandate, who needs Junts and ERC for each new step he wants to take in this uncertain legislature, first of all to approve new general budgets of the State for next year so that they can consolidate and stabilize their current mandate.
The night, however, ended with a party in the Ferraz noble room, where the PSOE leadership was meeting, while Sánchez followed the scrutiny from the Moncloa. The President of the Government has thus recovered his breath and has regained his political vigor after his personal crisis of the five days of April in which he kept the continuity of his mandate in suspense. The PSC has won the elections for the second consecutive time, for the first time in votes and seats. And it has reached the dreamed 42 seats, seven more than Carles Puigdemont’s candidacy, with the option of governing as a minority or forming a new left-wing tripartite that avoids blockade and electoral repetition.
“The only option to govern Catalonia is Salvador Illa,” they have settled in Ferraz. With a main derivative: “The measures of the Government of Pedro Sánchez to return to coexistence in Catalonia today receive a very important endorsement and boost.” Catalonia, in the opinion of the socialists, “turns the page and opens a new era with Illa.” With a relevant novelty: “The independence options had been gaining an absolute majority in the Parliament for 40 years, until today.”
As soon as the scrutiny began to have consistency, the PSOE leadership would have already signed the result, with a PSC located at the ceiling of its most optimistic expectations, with 42 seats, and the option of a solo and minority government, or that a left-wing tripartite can be reissued, despite a collapse of ERC that will lead to a difficult digestion, and without an alternative pro-independence majority. In Ferraz they have crossed their fingers, ensuring that none of the hypothetical partners of a tripartite led by the PSC –ERC and Comunes– could be interested in a blockade that would lead to repeating the elections. In the end, Illa’s victory has been incontestable. And Sánchez can face the new campaign for the European elections on June 9 with an extra injection of gasoline.
