A regional election was held in Catalonia on 14 February 2021 to elect the 13th/14th Parliament of the autonomous community. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election.
After the 2017 election, pro-Catalan independence parties secured a parliamentary majority, electing Quim Torra as new Catalan president after attempts to have Carles Puigdemont and Jordi Turull elected to the office were foiled by Spanish courts. However, in December 2019 Torra was disqualified by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) from holding any elected office and/or from exercising government powers for disobeying the Central Electoral Commission (JEC)'s rulings in the April 2019 Spanish general election campaign. Torra remained as president as he appealed the ruling, but was stripped from his status as legislator in the Catalan parliament. A snap election loomed over the horizon for several months as Torra announced his will to call one after the court rulings, but the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain stalled these plans. On 28 September 2020, the TSJC's ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court of Spain, finally disqualifying Torra from office and paving the way for a regional election to be called for early 2021.
Puigdemont announced his intention to lead the lists of his new Together for Catalonia (JxCat) party into the election, with former regional Culture minister Laura Borràs being selected as presidential candidate. Concurrently, in a move widely seen as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's personal bet for his party to obtain a strong performance in the election, the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC) selected health minister Salvador Illa, who had been at the helm of the Spanish government's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as its leading candidate.
Pro-independence parties gained a majority of the votes for the first time in an election and increased their parliamentary majority, though they lost over 600,000 votes from the previous election amidst the lowest voter turnout in history, at just 51.3%. The PSC under Salvador Illa emerged as the most voted political party while tying in seats as the largest parliamentary force for the first time in history. The far-right Vox placed fourth and entered Parliament for first time, winning 11 seats, to the collapse of both Citizens (which placed first in the previous election and fell to seventh, losing 30 seats) and the People's Party (which worsened its 2017 result, already its worst in history). The Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT), the successor of the once-dominant Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC), lost parliamentary representation after they failed to clear the electoral threshold. PDeCAT's extraparliamentary performance partially overturned the record for wasted votes (in vote share, but not raw votes) that had been set by CDC's erstwhile coalition partner, the Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC), in 2015.
Overview Under the 2006 Statute of Autonomy, the Parliament of Catalonia was the unicameral legislature of the homonymous autonomous community, having legislative power in devolved matters, as well as the ability to grant or withdraw confidence from a regional president.. The electoral and procedural rules were supplemented by national law provisions. ( by ); .
Date The term of the Parliament of Catalonia expired four years after the date of its previous election, unless it was dissolved earlier. The election was required to be called no later than 15 days before the scheduled expiration date of parliament, with election day taking place between 40 and 60 days from the call.. The previous election was held on 21 December 2017, which meant that the chamber's term would have expired on 21 December 2021. The election was required to be called no later than 6 December 2021, setting the latest possible date for election day on 4 February 2022.
The regional president had the prerogative to dissolve the Parliament of Catalonia at any given time and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process and that dissolution did not occur before one year after a previous one under this procedure.; . In the event of an investiture process failing to elect a regional president within a two-month period from the first ballot, the Parliament was to be automatically dissolved and a fresh election called.; .
On 29 January 2020, President Quim Torra announced that he would be calling a snap election at some point throughout 2020 once the budgetary procedure was finalized in Parliament, after a government crisis erupted between Together for Catalonia (Junts) and Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) over Torra's being stripped of his status as legislator, resulting from a court ruling for disobeying the Central Electoral Commission by not withdrawing partisan symbols from the Palau de la Generalitat's facade and not guaranteeing the institution's neutrality during the April 2019 Spanish general election campaign.
While the budget's parliamentary transaction timetable was due to be over by 18 March (meaning that an election could be held as soon as Monday, 11 May, if called immediately, or 17 May if the long-term tradition of holding elections on a Sunday was kept)—members from both Junts and ERC hinted that the election could be delayed until after the summer, to be held in September–October 2020. The risk existed that, in the meantime, the Supreme Court issued a firm ruling on Torra's disqualification that removed him from the president's office and thus deprived him of the prerogative of parliament dissolution. The announcement of a possible snap 2020 election in Catalonia had the immediate side effect of triggering an early election in the Basque Country for 5 April, as Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu sought to distance himself from the convoluted Catalan political landscape by avoiding any interference with the Basque election, which was initially not scheduled until autumn 2020. This in turn precipitated the end of the legislature in Galicia, with regional president Alberto Núñez Feijóo announcing a snap election to be held simultaneously with the Basque one.
In July 2020, it was revealed that former Catalan president and Torra's predecessor Carles Puigdemont initially sought to have the election being held on 4 October 2020, in order for his upcoming political party to benefit from the pro-independence nostalgia of the Diada and the third anniversary of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, which would require the Parliament to be dissolved on 12 August. However, severe COVID-19 outbreaks in the Lleida/Segrià and Barcelona metropolitan areas in mid-July forced these plans to be delayed. Torra's disqualification was confirmed in late September. The Catalan parliament chose not to appoint a replacement candidate for the regional presidency, with a parliamentary act being published on 21 October confirming such situation and starting the two month-legally established timetable until the automatic dissolution of the chamber and the election being scheduled to be held on 14 February 2021. Eventually on 21 December, acting president Pere Aragonès signed the decree dissolving the Parliament of Catalonia. The Parliament of Catalonia was officially dissolved on 22 December 2020 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the Official Journal of the Government of Catalonia (DOGC), setting election day for 14 February..
As a result of the worsening situation in Catalonia and in all of Spain because of mounting cases and deaths in the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the election date was initially postponed to 30 May 2021.. However, after a legal challenge over perceived irregularities in the decree, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia decided on 19 January to suspend the postponement and move the election back to the original 14 February date. This decision was confirmed on 21 January.
Electoral system Voting for the Parliament was based on universal suffrage, comprising all Spanish nationals over 18 years of age, registered in Catalonia and with full political rights, provided that they had not been deprived of the right to vote by a final sentence.; ( by ). Additionally, non-resident citizens were required to apply for voting, a system known as "begged" voting ()..
The Parliament of Catalonia had a minimum of 100 and a maximum of 150 seats, with electoral provisions fixing its size at 135. All were elected in four multi-member constituencies—corresponding to the provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, each of which was assigned a fixed number of seats—using the D'Hondt method and closed-list proportional voting, with a three percent-threshold of valid votes (including blank ballots) in each constituency.; ( by ). The use of this electoral method resulted in a higher effective threshold depending on district magnitude and vote distribution.
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Parliament constituency was entitled the following seats:; .
Seats Constituencies 85 Barcelona 18 Tarragona 17 Girona 15 Lleida
The law did not provide for by-elections to fill vacant seats; instead, any vacancies arising after the proclamation of candidates and during the legislative term were filled by the next candidates on the party lists or, when required, by designated substitutes..
Outgoing parliament
The table below shows the composition of the parliamentary groups in the chamber at the time of dissolution.
+ Parliamentary composition in December 2020 Groups Parties Legislators Seats Total Citizens's Parliamentary Group Cs 36 36 Together for Catalonia's Parliamentary Group JxCat 24 34 PDeCAT 5 AxR 3 EV–AV 1 IdE 1 Republican Parliamentary Group ERC 30 32 DC 2 Socialists' and United to AdvanceParliamentary Group PSC 15 17 Els Units 2 Catalonia in Common–We Can'sParliamentary Group CatComú 4 8 Podem 4 Mixed Group CUP 4 8 PP 4
Parties and candidates The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, alliances and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form an alliance were required to inform the relevant electoral commission within 10 days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of at least one percent of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list. Concurrently, parties, federations or alliances that had not obtained a parliamentary mandate at the preceding election were required to secure the signature of at least 0.1 percent of electors in the aforementioned constituencies.. Additionally, a balanced composition of men and women was required in the electoral lists, so that candidates of either sex made up at least 40 percent of the total composition..
Below is a list of the main parties and alliances which contested the election:
Candidacy Parties andalliances Leading candidate Ideology Previous result Vote % Seats Cs Carlos Carrizosa Liberalism 25.4% JxCat Laura Borràs Catalan independencePopulism 21.7% PDeCAT Àngels Chacón Catalan independenceLiberalism ERC Pere Aragonès Catalan independenceLeft-wing nationalismSocial democracy 21.4% PSC–PSOE Salvador Illa Social democracy 13.9% ECP–PEC Jéssica Albiach Left-wing populismDirect democracyEco-socialism 7.5% CUP–G Dolors Sabater Catalan independenceAnti-capitalismSocialism 4.5% PP Alejandro Fernández ConservatismChristian democracy 4.2% Vox Ignacio Garriga Right-wing populismUltranationalismNational conservatism colspan="2"