The unadventurous Catalan president Pere Aragonès has decided to call a snap election in Catalonia for May 12th. He did this on the same day that Parliament rejected his government's budget for this year. The public support given by the Catalan Socialists (PSC) to stabilize the legislature has not been enough, after both Together for Catalonia (Junts) and Ada Colau's En Comú, like the rest of the opposition parties, threw out the proposed public accounts which this Wednesday faced the initial vote on whether to reject them outright or admit them for hearing. The alliance of deputies from Aragonès's Republican Left (ERC) with the Socialist MPs was unable to get over this obstacle. Although the formal element of the dispute was the Hard Rock macro project in Tarragona, it is obvious that the tourist complex was the excuse for a decision that ERC had been contemplating for several weeks and which was precipitated on Monday after the meeting of the party's senior leadership.
The scenario of an early election was an option for the Republicans to consider, if a convincing excuse could be found to justify it to public opinion. They only had to find the moment, and the Comuns served it up on a tray to Aragonès, who only had to reject the threats from Jessica Albiach after she insisted that the government give up the Camp de Tarragona leisure complex for her party to withdraw its 'no' to the Generalitat budget. With the rejection of the budget, Aragonès spoke solemnly from the Palau de la Generalitat of his anger with the opposition and the early election call. Although either Comuns or Junts could have rectified their vote and maintained the legislature, neither changed their initial opinion, confident in the knowledge that an election would be called in May.
The Comuns are greatly irritated with ERC and with Aragonès for their opposition to allowing the alternative left party to join the governing team of the Barcelona city council. For Ada Colau, who has already set in motion her machinery for the 2027 municipal elections, having the Comuns form part of Jaume Collboni's government is a priority. But their calls have not been answered so far. The budget vote was a way of showing their indignance. For their part, Junts also debated in recent days what to do with the budget, especially since the early election finds them at a complicated moment: without having designated their candidate or having developed the outline of a consistent electoral programme to bring back former voters. This, at a time in Catalan politics, in which the driving force in the elections will also be in issues of management, and Junts, at the moment, is outside the practical entirety of government machinery.
A hypothetical electoral return by the president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, has also been factor taken into consideration in analyzing the calling of a snap election. Although the judges will do what they want with the amnesty law, the electoral impact that his return could have was and continues to be shrouded in uncertainty. At this point, the interests of ERC and the PSC tend to converge: better to keep Puigdemont off an electoral list and not campaigning in Catalonia. On May 12th, there will be no amnesty law, which will still be continuing is legislative processing. Despite all this, Puigdemont made a first move by immediately pointing out that he will be able to be present at the parliamentary investiture debate after the election when the new president of the Generalitat is decided. He said nothing more, but that was enough.
On this point, the interests of ERC and the PSC tend to converge: better to keep Puigdemont off an electoral list and not campaigning in Catalonia
Is it possible that Puigdemont will head the list and present himself in Catalonia once the investiture debate is held? Could he even come early, without the law having been passed, and run the risk of spending time in jail and thus force the implementation of the amnesty law? How will he play it? The president in exile is not usually characterized by conservative moves and, at moments like this, it must be far from his thoughts to opt for comfort. Quite the opposite, I would tend to think.
And, undoubtedly, another factor in Aragonès's decision to bring forward the elections to May 12th was the drought that Catalonia is suffering. Despite the long-awaited episode of rain and snow last weekend, the prospect of a very problematic summer, especially for the tourism sector, which could even lead to restrictions on the consumption of drinking water, may have moved ERC's calculations away from an election in the autumn. In any case, the chronic lack of investment to stop the consequences of the water emergency will not go away by itself. Not for anyone.
The figure who is already a clear victim of the early election call is the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. On top of all the problems he has, comes the irreversible fact that he has been left without the necessary votes to pass his own budget, that of the Spanish state, for this year. There will be no public accounts in his first year of office in the current legislature, and we will see if he is able to overcome this given the additional difficulties he has, related to Socialist corruption. But nor will he have much margin left to pass the 2025 budget, since, depending on the results of the Catalan election, one of the two essential partners he arithmetically needs to continue in government, Junts and ERC, runs a serious risk of being left out of the next Catalan government. In other words, the incentive to keep Sánchez in the Moncloa palace will be pretty close to zero. Without having lifted a finger himself to bring it about, the Spanish PM finds that the year of transition he would have had, if the elections to the Catalan Parliament had been held in February 2025 as per the schedule, has evaporated. As if Sánchez didn't have enough problems.