Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) is seen as more able to govern than Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), according to a post-election survey in Catalonia published this Friday by CIS (Centre for Sociological Research). This despite JxCat having edged out ERC for second place in the election in December last year. The party that came first first in that election, Ciutadans (Cs), is part of the anti-independence bloc, which doesn't have enough votes to invest a president.
Pollsters asked which party respondents thought was best qualified to tackle each of eleven specific areas: unemployment, public safety, Catalan self-governance, immigration, housing, the economy, health, Catalan funding, education, protecting the environment and the Catalan language. ERC is more highly-rated than JxCat in all areas except public safety for which president Carles Puigdemont's coalition beats vice-president Oriol Junqueras's party by just 0.1 points.
In terms of the topics most specific to Catalonia, like funding, self-governance, education and language, ERC comes far ahead of JxCat, more so than in the more general questions like unemployment, housing, immigration or the economy.
Ciutadans doesn't beat ERC or JxCat
As for Cs, despite having declared themselves as having won last year's election, held in extraordinary circumstances having been called by the Spanish government after it fired the then Catalan government, doesn't beat the two largest pro-independence parties on this survey, falling to third place in terms of how qualified it is seen as being to tackle each of the areas.
To give some specific numbers, 16.9% said they believed ERC the best option to take on the issue of unemployment as opposed to 14.1% for JxCat, 14% for Cs. For self-governance, 22% trust ERC most, ahead of 17.1% for JxCat and 15% for Cs. The results for the question of funding the autonomous community are similar: 21.1% for ERC, 17.7% for JxCat and 14.1% for Cs. As for health, ERC also has a strong lead with a result of 19.3% compared to JxCat's 15.5% and Cs' 14.4%.
Public safety was the one area where JxCat pipped ERC, but only by 17.5% to 17.4%. Cs, for their part, got 14.4% on the question.