With only five days to go before the Catalan election on 12th May, the newspaper Diari d'Andorra, based in the Pyrenean microstate of Andorra, has this Tuesday published the first of a series of daily polls offering a projection of votes and seats in the election to the Parliament of Catalonia this Sunday. The Diari d'Andorra poll is an electoral tracking survey commissioned by the Institut Feedback, directed by Jordi Sauret, and it will be updated every day with 200 new survey interviews from Tuesday until Saturday, the day of reflection on the eve of Catalonia's date at the polling stations.
The Spanish electoral law (LOREG), in force since 1985, prohibits in its Article 69.7 the publication and dissemination or reproduction of electoral surveys in the Spanish state by any means of communication during the five days prior to the holding of elections, in this case, from 00.00 hours this Tuesday, May 7th.
However, this prohibition does not apply to political parties, which can continue polling, and, in this way, can access updated information on the evolution of voter preferences in the often-decisive final stretch of the campaign. In fact, political parties can conduct polls because the aforementioned article of the LOREG only bans "the publication and dissemination or reproduction of electoral polls by any means of communication". But it does not prohibit the surveys from being carried out.
Other countries
The media blackout on poll results specified in Spanish law does not exist in other countries, which publish polls on voting intentions and seat predictions as normal. Thus, in previous elections, surveys on elections in the Spanish state have been published during the second week of the campaign by El Periòdic d'Andorra (Spanish general election of 2008, Parliament of Catalonia in 2010, municipal elections in 2015, general elections in 2015 and 2016 , Catalan election of 2017, municipal and general in 2019 and, again, the Catalan election in 2021).
The Australian web portal The Adelaide Review has also published pre-election polls during the campaign for the municipal and general elections in 2023. This newspaper is also publishing polls on the Catalan election of May 12th, 2024. The Scottish newspaper The National also published polls on the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia on December 21st, 2017 and February 14th, 2021.
The last Feedback survey published on Monday before the Spanish legal ban came into force brought the expected results of the Catalan Socialists (PSC) and Together for Catalonia (Junts) closer together: they would obtain, respectively 39-40 and 33-36 seats in the new Parliament. The Catalan Republican Left (ERC) would be third largest party with 25-28; the People's Party (PP) and Vox would tie with 11-12 seats in fourth; Commons-Sumar would get 6 to 8 seats, and the far-left CUP 4-6; and finally, the Islamophobic AC would obtain 0-2 seats.
The election figures
In the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia on May 12th, 2024, a total of 4,278,966 Catalans have the right to vote, of whom 4,051,040 reside in Catalonia. The Census of Residents Abroad (CERA) consists of 227,926 people.
The Parliament of Catalonia is made up of 135 seats that are elected in four constituencies. Barcelona, the most populous, elects 85 deputies; that of Tarragona, 18; that of Girona, 17 and, finally, that of Lleida contributes 15. The previous elections were held on February 14th, 2021. The PSC obtained 33 deputies, ERC also 33; Junts, 32; Vox, 11; the CUP, 9; En Comú Podem, 8; Ciudadanos, 6; and the PP, 3.