Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's policy of conciliation towards Catalan independence movements was validated at the polls on Sunday, May 12. The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), led by Salvador Illa, who was Spain's health minister during the Covid-19 pandemic, came out well ahead in the Catalan regional elections, with 28% of the vote and 42 seats (out of 130) – 5 points and 9 more seats than in the previous ballot in 2021. Above all, the sum of the pro-independence parties' seats (59) did not reach an absolute majority (68), for the first time since 2012 and the start of the turn towards pro-independence by the former moderate nationalist coalition Convergence and Union.

"The Catalans have decided to turn a new page," Illa declared in the evening. He said one of the "factors" of this change was "the policy followed by the Spanish government and its leader, Pedro Sanchez." Sanchez has constantly reached out to the pro-independence movement in recent years, in order to secure their support in the national parliament and thus complete his majority.

After the pardons granted in 2021 to pro-independence leaders sentenced to long prison terms for the October 2017 secession attempt, the prime minister reformed the penal code ad hoc to abolish the crime of "sedition." In November 2023, he negotiated an amnesty law covering all offenses committed in the struggle for independence since 2012.

After the dashed hopes of 2017, pro-independence supporters' disappointment with their leaders was accompanied by a strong decline in turnout, which was accentuated after the release of imprisoned pro-independence leaders in 2021. Turnout on Sunday was one of the lowest ever recorded, at 55%, just 4 points higher than the previous election, which took place during the pandemic. It was 20 points lower than in 2017.

The PSC managed to absorb many votes from the pro-independence party Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), in power in Barcelona, which fell by more than 7 points, to 14% of the vote, and plummeted from 33 to 20 seats. "This is a very bad result," stressed the president of the Catalan government, Pere Aragonès, ruling out the possibility of a pact with the Catalan Socialists and the radical left-wing party Comuns, which would guarantee an absolute majority in the Catalan parliament. "We will work for our political project from the opposition," he insisted.

Heavily criticized for its management of current affairs, particularly the drought, ERC was largely outdone by its main pro-independence rival, Junts (pro-independence right), whose former president of the Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, was the lead candidate.

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