In Catalonia as a whole, the pro-independence parties have added 1,260,769 votes and those opposed to independence have gathered 1,376,776 ballots
The long faces of the pro-independence parties in Catalonia they evidenced the bad taste in their mouths that the municipal elections had left them. Beyond how each formation has fared, the secessionists as a whole have reasons to be concerned because this appointment with the polls has certified that many Catalans have already turned the page on the ‘procés’. In two years, the independence movement has gone from reaping its best electoral record to registering its worst record since 2016, before the convulsive autumn of 2017. In fact, the trend of the latest calls that the independence movement managed to win at the polls, but did not grow in followers. This 28-M neither one thing nor the other has happened.
In Catalonia as a whole, the pro-independence parties have added 1,260,769 votes and the opponents of independence have gathered 1,376,776 ballots. A difference of 116,007 votes in favor of the non-secessionists. Compared to the municipal elections of 2019, the independentistas have collected 322,700 fewer votes and the non-independentistas, 173,174 fewer votes. This drop in both blocks is explained by the sharp drop in participation in Catalonia, which has been 9.2 points lower than that recorded four years ago.
In percentage of vote, the independence movement has reached in these municipalities the 41.92%, four points less than in 2019. If we compare it with the most recent electoral call, the Catalans of 2021, the setback is 8.8 points. It must be taken into account that the autonomic ones of two years ago provided the best percentage result for the secessionists, although also its worst data until this 28-M in absolute numbers. That result gave rise to myth of the 52% pro-independence majority in Catalonia.
To find a lower number of pro-independence ballots, one must go back to the general elections of June 2016, when there were 1,115,722 secessionist votes. And in percentage, the general elections of April 2019 registered a 39.38% vote in favor of the break with Spain. In fact, traditionally, the most refractory elections for the independence movement have always been the state ones.
But they have not only lowered the level in some Catalan elections. In the European last year there were 1,720,550 secessionist votes; in the november generals, 1,642,063; And in the municipal, 1,583,469. They are records similar to those that have been collected in each call by an independence movement that scored its best mark in recent autonomous of 2017: 2,079,764 votes. and in the 1-O referendumthe ‘yes’ were 2,020,144.
And on the electoral census – the social base to “widen” -, the percentage of the secessionist vote has suffered with each attack of the ‘procés’. Support for the secession of Catalonia attracted 37.4% of the census in the 2017 regional elections. In these elections, it has regressed no less than as far as 22.97%.