On May 12th, Catalans are called to vote once again. After president Pere Aragonès brought forward the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia in response to the inability to pass a government budget, the Catalan parties have set in motion their electoral machinery. In an election that falls almost a year earlier than it is due, the opinion polls that take the electoral pulse of Catalan society are beginning to appear with regularity. At ElNacional.cat we are compiling the polls as they are published to bring to light the overall trends. Naturally, there are variations, but as the pre-campaign begins, it can be said that the Catalan Socialists (PSC) are established as the leading force while the two main pro-independence parties, Together for Catalonia (Junts) and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) are fighting for second place.
The evolving intentions of Catalan voters
The polls published up to the last week in March, then, show the PSC leading with more than 26% of votes on average, and the Socialists are, despite some variations, the leading force in all forecasts. In second and third place, Junts and ERC are engaged in a very tight battle, with figures ranging from 17% to 21% of the total - but it must be noted that these initial polls do not include the possible effect of Carles Puigdemont as a candidate, since they were prepared before his March 21st announcement in Elna. In fourth place, according to the polls, is the main party of the Spanish right, the People's Party (PP) with 10% of the votes, which is a big jump compared to the results achieved in 2021, when it won 3.9% of the votes.
Further back in the preferences, alternative left En Comú (or Comuns) and far-right Vox get a slightly lower percentage of the vote than in the last elections. The leftists get an average of 6.7%, while the extreme right are at around 7%. As for the radical-left pro-independence Popular Unity Candidature (the CUP), the polls give it 5.4% of votes on average, which represents a fall of more than one percent compared to the last election in 2021. Also, the polls unanimously agree that the anit-independence right-wing party Ciudadanos (Cs) will disappear from the Parliament of Catalonia, as it is only predicted to win around 1% of the votes. It is also not expected - at this stage - that any of the other parties competing in the elections will exceed the threshold of 3% of votes, the minimum percentage of votes that entitles them to obtain MPs in the proportional representation system.
Evolution of vote percentage predicted per party, with polls in chronological order
Seats in Parliament and possible majorities
The different polls also predict what the possible distribution of seats will be in the Catalan chamber, which will determine the configuration of majorities. It is worth remembering that the Parliament of Catalonia has 135 seats, which are divided into the four electoral demarcations of Catalonia, corresponding to the four provinces: Barcelona, Tarragona, Girona and Lleida. Each of these four elects, via a proportional representation system, a number of parliamentary deputies corresponding to its population, although with a weighting that slighlty favours the three less-populated demarcations. Thus, Barcelona province elects 85 MPs; Tarragona, 18; Girona 17 and Lleida, 15 MPs. Looking at how the polls so far calculate the distribution of seats, the PSC remains in the lead by number of MPs, with between 36 and 42 seats. Junts is the second force on this basis, with between 27 and 33 seats, and ERC has between 26 and 31 seats. Between 12 and 15 deputies are expected for the PP and between 8 and 11 for Vox. As for the Comuns, the forecast is between 5 and 10 seats, and for the CUP most polls predict around 7 deputies.
Distribution of seats predicted, poll by poll
In this context, some polls point to a repeat of the current pro-independence majority in Parliament (ERC 33 seats + Junts 32 + CUP 9 = total of 73 seats, with the absolute majority at 68). Others do not see it as possible. On the other hand, if Salvador Illa wanted to form a government from the PSC, the polls indicate that he would have to negotiate with pro-independence parties, but the post-election scenarios are still highly uncertain.
As the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia get closer, ElNacional.cat will continue examining the polls published by different media outlets and updating the charts and the data for our readers. The voting percentage data will appear below: