Barcelona, Spain, May 12 (EFE).- Polling stations were open on Sunday as 5.7 million people in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia were called to vote in highly anticipated regional elections.
The poll, which comes amid heightened political tensions nationally, is being seen as a gauge of the autonomous region’s pro-independence movement and of Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez.
The prime minister angered conservatives in Spain by pardoning Catalan separatists as part of a government coalition deal, which Sanchez said was needed to allow Spain to reconcile and move on from a constitutional crisis triggered by the Catalan pro-independence movement.
Carles Puigdemont, a Member of the European Parliament who has lived in exile since he was charged over his role in an unsanctioned independence referendum in 2017 while he was Catalonia’s regional president, said that he hopes Sunday will be “the last day of exile for many people who are abroad,” adding that “it is time to return home.”
Speaking to the press from the French town of Laroque-des-Albères near the Spanish border, Puigdemont called for a high turnout to “exercise and strengthen” the right to vote, and because “so many things are at stake for Catalonia”.
The candidates in the election are Salvador Illa of the Socialists’ Party of Catalonia (PSC), who is the favorite in the polls, current regional president Pere Aragonès of the pro-independence Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), former regional president Carles Puigdemont of the hardline separatist group Junts per Catalunya (‘Together for Catalonia’), Ignacio Garriga of the far-right Vox, Laia Estrada of the left-wing, pro-independence Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), Jéssica Albiach of the left-wing Comuns Sumar, Carlos Carrizosa of the center-right, nationalist Ciudadanos (‘Citizens’) party and Alejandro Fernández of the conservative People’s Party (PP), the opposition party nationally.
Of the 5,754,931 registered voters – 130,864 more than in the previous elections in 2021 – just over 243,000 are young people who will be voting for the first time.
Some 7,300 police officers will be mobilized to provide security throughout the day. EFE
nac-ks
