Spain’s Socialist party (PSOE) won crucial elections in Catalonia over the weekend, beating a pro-independence bloc whose support has been declining steadily over the last few years. The Socialists were led by Salvador Illa, who served as Spain’s health minister during the pandemic. The party will now have the first shot at forming the region’s next government, despite being 26 seats short of a majority. The negotiations are likely to last for weeks, and may have an impact on the national administration led by Pedro Sanchez, which itself is heavily reliant on the support of Catalan separatists.

Sunday’s election was a de facto vote on Catalan secession, which has been the most divisive issue in Spanish politics for over a decade. Despite the complex cross-party talks that await him, Illa hailed the Socialist victory as a major step forward in soothing tensions between Madrid and Barcelona, which reached breaking point with an illegal referendum on Catalan independence in 2017. ‘This election could – and should – open a new era in Catalonia that I’d define in two words: the verbs “unite” and “serve”’ he said on Sunday night. Illa claims Catalans are tired of secession and want to focus instead on domestic matters such as the region’s drought as well as education and healthcare. A poll released last autumn revealed that support for Catalan independence had slumped to its lowest point in over a decade, suggesting he might be right.

The PSOE took 28 per cent of Sunday’s vote and 42 seats in Catalonia’s 135-seat parliament, up from the 33 seats it won in the region’s last election in 2021. In second place came the liberal secessionist party Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), which upped its seats from 32 to 35 on 22 per cent of the vote. Junts was the only one of three main pro-independence forces to improve on its 2021 performance: the third-placed Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), led by outgoing president Pere Aragones, dropped 13 seats, while the more hardline Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) lost five and trailed in seventh. A new, centre-right pro-independence party called Alianca Cat won its first two seats.

Together, those four pro-independence parties have 61 seats, more than the PSOE and just seven short of a majority. If Illa fails to form a regional administration over the coming weeks, Junts will have the second opportunity to do so. That’s when former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont – a hero and martyr for many of the region’s secessionists – could return to domestic politics.

After orchestrating the illegal referendum and subsequent declaration of independence in 2017, Puigdemont fled to Belgium to avoid arrest for sedition and misuse of public funds – offences for which several of his colleagues spent almost four years in prison. He has stayed there ever since, campaigning from southern France ahead of Sunday’s vote. Puigdemont’s charge sheet is about to be wiped clean by a controversial amnesty deal Sanchez struck with Catalan secessionists in March. Though the deal is opposed by the majority of Spaniards, Sanchez hopes that it will result in peace between Catalonia and the central government in Madrid.

Partly for his own sake, Sanchez will be hoping that Illa can form a unionist administration in Catalonia – but whichever way the former health minister turns, the coalition mathematics don’t quite work out. If Illa teamed up with the leftist group Sumar, as the Socialists have done at the national level, they would still be 20 seats short of a majority. Even with the addition of leftist (but pro-independence) CUP, the three parties would still only have 52 seats. It seems that Illa has no way of reaching the magic number of 68 without the support of at least one secessionist party, which effectively puts him in the same position as Sanchez. And if Junts feels marginalised in the post-election wranglings, it will waste no time in punishing Sanchez’s coalition in the national congress.

As the effective leader of Catalonia’s pro-independence bloc, Puigdemont has formidable problems of his own. There are deep divisions within the separatist camp – indeed yesterday’s vote, which wasn’t due until next year, was called early by Aragones because of his inability to pass a budget for 2024. His party, the ERC, was part of a coalition arrangement with Junts until late 2022, when the latter quit following internal disagreements. Puigdemont’s almost fanatical obsession with secession contrasts sharply with the ERC’s more pragmatic, dialogue-based approach.

There is also the question of why, with Catalans drifting away from the secessionist cause, Puigdemont is still fighting so hard. At a rally in the south of France last Friday, he told supporters that the upcoming vote was a way of saying ‘“Enough!” Enough of mistreating our language and culture and saying sorry for who we want to be.’ Yesterday’s vote seems to show that Catalans are indeed saying ‘enough’. They have had enough of the battle their exiled former president wants to prolong at all costs.