Catalonia calls for snap elections to be held on Sunday 12 May

The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has called for elections on Sunday, May 12th, following the Comuns’ vote against the budget, this very noon. Aragonès wanted to finish the term, which should have ended in February of next year, but the government found itself on the ropes. The president has lost the support of the two parties that invested him, Junts and  CUP, which also voted against the budgets; he has been governing in a clear minority of thirty-three deputies since October 2022 and has lost a good part of the votes in parliament since then.

Aragonès regretted that “the red lines and the blockade between some and others have resulted in the budget with the most resources in the history of the Generalitat de Catalonia being rejected.” The president said he made the decision “not to depend on the irresponsibility of those who prioritize party interests” and “with the aim that Catalonia can have a government with much more strength.” In a very brief appearance, of a few minutes, he claimed his government’s work and said that on May 12th “Catalonia will choose between irresponsibility and responsibility, between those who want a Catalonia of the past and those who want one of the future.”

The budget project prepared by Minister Natàlia Garriga had the support of the main opposition party, the PSC, and expected to receive that of the Comuns. Its spokesperson, Jéssica Albiach, demanded until the last minute that the government stop the processing of the tourist macro-complex in Vila-seca i Salou, known as Hard Rock, but the government, arguing that it was technically impossible, did not do so. “They have yielded to the interests of the lobbies, La Caixa, and the PSC,” said the spokesperson for En Comú Podem today. The spokesperson for the Republicans, Marta Vilalta, criticized them for putting on a show because the government had no margin to act. Aragonès also rejected Junts’ proposal to approve the budget in exchange for eliminating the inheritance tax.

The early elections find Junts still without a declared candidate for the presidency and the CUP in the midst of a refoundation process. Aragonès, on the other hand, was confirmed as the Republican Left candidate in January, and Salvador Illa, the socialist candidate, has also been ratified. The date chosen for the elections is less than a month before the European Parliament elections, which take place on June 9th. It is the fifth term that does not complete the full four years—the last one was the second tripartite, chaired by José Montilla.

The elections will come with the uncertainty of whether the amnesty law, pending approval in the Spanish congress, will have come into effect or not. There are still frontline political leaders, such as Oriol Junqueras, president of ERC, and Jordi Turull, secretary-general of Junts, who remain disqualified pending legal change. The advancement also catches the three proposals in the oven of a possible fourth pro-independence space: the ANC civic list, on which partners have not yet pronounced, the xenophobic party of Catalan Alliance, and the Alhora space of Clara Ponsatí and Jordi Graupera.