Next Catalan regional election
The next Catalan regional election will be held no later than Friday, 4 February 2022, to elect the 13th Parliament of the autonomous community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament will be up for election.
After the 2017 election, pro-Catalan independence parties secured a parliamentary majority, electing Quim Torra as new Catalan president after attempts to have Carles Puigdemont and Jordi Turull elected to the office were foiled by Spanish courts. On 19 December 2019, Torra was sentenced by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia to a year and a half of disqualification from holding any elected office and/or from exercising government powers, in addition to a fine of €30,000, for disobeying the Central Electoral Commission by not withdrawing partisan symbols from the Palau de la Generalitat's facade and not guaranteeing the institution's neutrality during the April 2019 Spanish general election campaign. The JEC determined that Torra was to be immediately stripped of his status as legislator, a decision made effective on 27 January 2020 with the approval of the parliament's speaker, Roger Torrent. This sparked a crisis within the governing coalition formed by Together for Catalonia and Torrent's party Republican Left of Catalonia, leading Torra to announce on 29 January that he would call a snap election once the 2020 budget got the final approval of parliament in March.
Overview
Electoral system
The Parliament of Catalonia is the devolved, unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, having legislative power in regional matters as defined by the Spanish Constitution and the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, as well as the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a regional president.As a result of no regional electoral law having been approved since the re-establishment of Catalan autonomy, the electoral procedure comes regulated under Transitory Provision Fourth of the 1979 Statute, supplemented by the provisions within the Organic Law of General Electoral Regime. Voting for the Parliament is on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprises all nationals over eighteen, registered in Catalonia and in full enjoyment of their political rights. Additionally, Catalans abroad are required to apply for voting before being permitted to vote, a system known as "begged" or expat vote. The 135 members of the Parliament of Catalonia are elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with a threshold of three percent of valid votes—which includes blank ballots—being applied in each constituency. Parties not reaching the threshold are not taken into consideration for seat distribution. Seats are allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, with each being allocated a fixed number of seats: 85 for Barcelona, 17 for Girona, 15 for Lleida and 18 for Tarragona.
The use of the D'Hondt method may result in a higher effective threshold, depending on the district magnitude.
Election date
The term of the Parliament of Catalonia expires four years after the date of its previous election, unless it is dissolved earlier. The regional president is required to call an election fifteen days prior to the date of expiry of parliament, with election day taking place within from forty to sixty days after the call. The previous election was held on 21 December 2017, which means that the legislature's term will expire on 21 December 2021. The election is required to be called no later than 6 December 2021, with it taking place up to the sixtieth day from the call, setting the latest possible election date for the Parliament on Friday, 4 February 2022.The president has the prerogative to dissolve the Parliament of Catalonia and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence is in process and that dissolution does not occur before one year has elapsed since a previous one under this procedure. In the event of an investiture process failing to elect a regional president within a two-month period from the first ballot, the Parliament is to be automatically dissolved and a fresh election called.
On 29 January 2020, President Quim Torra announced that he would be calling a snap election to be held at some point throughout 2020 once the parliamentary procedures for the budget's approval were finalized, after a government crisis erupted between Together for Catalonia and Republican Left of Catalonia over Torra's being stripped of his status as legislator, resulting from a court ruling condemning Torra for disobeying the Central Electoral Commission by not withdrawing partisan symbols from the Palau de la Generalitat's facade and not guaranteeing the institution's neutrality during the April 2019 Spanish general election campaign.
While the budget's parliamentary transaction timetable was due to be over by 18 March, meaning that an election could be held as soon as Monday, 11 May, if called immediately—or 17 May if the long-term tradition of holding elections on a Sunday is kept—members from both JxCat and ERC hinted that the election could be delayed until after the summer, to be held in September–October 2020. The risk existed that, in the meantime, the Supreme Court issued a firm ruling on Torra's disqualification that removed him from the president's office and thus deprived him of the prerogative of parliament dissolution. The announcement of a possible snap 2020 election in Catalonia had the immediate side effect of triggering an early election in the Basque Country for 5 April, as Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu sought to distance himself from the convoluted Catalan political landscape by avoiding any interference with the Basque election, which was initially not scheduled until autumn 2020. This in turn precipitated the end of the legislature in Galicia, with regional president Alberto Núñez Feijóo announcing a snap election to be held simultaneously with the Basque one.
In July 2020, it was revealed that former Catalan president and Torra's protector Carles Puigdemont initially sought to have the election being held on 4 October 2020, in order for his upcoming political party to benefit from the pro-independence nostalgia of the Diada and the third anniversary of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, which would require the Parliament to be dissolved on 12 August. However, severe COVID-19 outbreaks in the Lleida/Segrià and Barcelona metropolitan areas in mid-July forced these plans to be delayed, with the election now speculated to be held at some point during November.
Parliamentary status
The table below shows the status of the different parliamentary groups in the Parliament at the present time.Parties and candidates
The electoral law allows for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, coalitions and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form a coalition ahead of an election are required to inform the relevant Electoral Commission within ten days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors need to secure the signature of at least one percent of the electorate in the constituencies for which they seek election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates.Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which will likely contest the election:
After Torra's announcement of a snap election to be held at some point throughout 2020, speculation arose that both Citizens and the People's Party would try to form a Navarra Suma-inspired electoral alliance of right-from-centre political forces ahead of the election after both parties had shown a willingness to such agreement. Far-right party Vox discarded itself from joining any such coalition and announced that it would run on its own instead. On 31 January 2020, Cs spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies Inés Arrimadas hinted at the possibility of such agreement being exported to Galicia and the Basque Country as well under the "Better United" umbrella, excluding Vox from such arrangement. The heavy defeat of the similar PP+Cs formula in the 12 July Basque election sparked doubts within the regional PP's branch over the electoral viability of such an alliance in Catalonia, despite national PP leader Pablo Casado remaining favourable to it. Former French prime minister Manuel Valls—who had run in the 2019 Barcelona municipal election within Cs's lists and had broken up with Albert Rivera's party shortly afterwards—was also said to be considering launching his own bid for the regional election, but Arrimadas's appointment as Cs leader had resulted in both parties mending their ties and exploring the possibilities of a joint platform.
In July 2020, following the failure of negotiations between the Catalan European Democratic Party and former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont for the reorganization of the post-convergent space under the Together for Catalonia umbrella because of the former's refusal to dissolve itself as a party, Puigdemont announced the founding of a new personalist party ahead of the upcoming regional election, wrestling control over the JxCat's brand away from the PDeCAT for his own use, and breaking all ties with his former party. The new party—a new Together for Catalonia which would advocate for the goal of achieving unilateral independence—was to be formed by the merger of the National Call for the Republic, Action for the Republic and splinter elements from the PDeCAT, while considering the incorporation of ERC-aligned Democrats of Catalonia —being pushed away from ERC over the latter's more pro-agreement, bilateral stances—as well as breaking up the Popular Unity Candidacy by inviting the more pro-independence Poble Lliure into Puigdemont's list. Junts's formation process was started on 18 July with the public presentation of its imagery. By mid-to-late July, Puigdemont's allies had been publicly calling for disgruntled members within a deeply-fractured PDeCAT to join their new Junts party upon its founding congress, leading Independence Rally to forfeit its collaboration agreement with the former, which it had maintained since 2013.
The crisis within the post-convergent political space had also seen the founding of a new party, the Nationalist Party of Catalonia, from splinter elements of the PDeCAT opposing the idea of unilateral independence and disenchanted with Puigdemont's growing influence, with former coordinator-general Marta Pascal at its helm. On 15 July 2020, it was announced that several parties resulting from the Convergence and Union break up, namely Free, Convergents and Democratic League, had agreed to form an electoral alliance ahead of the upcoming regional election, with the PNC and Ramon Espadaler's United to Advance —until then allied to the PSC—considering joining the new coalition as well. On 23 July, Lliures, CNV and LD announced the creation of a joint commission to begin the drafting of a future electoral programme and invited Units, the PNC and the "moderate" sectors still in the PDeCAT—who favoured an alliance outside of Puigdemont's sphere of influence—to join into a "a broad centre alternative that included Catalanists and sovereignists".