Six years after plunging Spain into its worst political crisis in decades, Catalonia's separatist parties are in danger of losing their hold on power.
The four pro-independence parties, led by the Together party of former regional president Carles Puigdemont, were set to get a total of 61 seats, according to a near-complete count of the ballots.A pro-unity rally marches through Barcelona, Spain, on October 8, 2017, in response to last Sunday's disputed referendum on Catalan independence.
But there is a path for Illa to reach the goal of 68 seats. The Socialists are already in a coalition government in Madrid with the Sumar party, which now has six seats in the Catalan parliament. But the hard part will be wooing over a leftist party from the separatist camp. "The candidacy that I led had a good result, we are the only pro-independence force to increase in votes and seats, and we assume the responsibility that entails," Puigdemont said. "But that is not enough to compensate the losses of the other separatists parties."
Puigdemont's escape from Spain became the stuff of legend among his followers, and a huge source of embarrassment for Spain's law enforcement. He recently denied during the campaign that he had hidden himself in a car trunk to avoid detection while he slipped across the border during a legal crackdown that landed several of his cohorts in prison until Sánchez's government pardoned them.
The Popular Party, which is the largest party in Spain's national parliament where it leads the opposition, surged to 15 seats from three. "We have seen that Catalonia is not immune to the reactionary, far-right wave sweeping Europe," Aragonés, the outgoing regional president, said.
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