Illa wins the elections in votes but the independentistas add an absolute majority, according to the polls

The Partit dels Socialistes and Esquerra Republicana are vying for victory in the Catalan elections this Sunday according to the first polls published after the polls closed.

The Gad3 poll for Televisión Española and TV3 gives ERC the winner in number of seats (36-38) and the PSC would be left with 34 or 36, although the Socialists would win in number of votes.

Junts per Catalunya would be left with between 30 and 33 representatives.

The independendentistas would add an absolute majority, located at 68 seats, which would allow them to remain in the Government if they reach an agreement.

Another five or six parties would gain representation.

They are Catalunya en Comú, the Catalan reference of Podemos, with 6-7 deputies, and the anti-capitalist left of the CUP, with seven.

The extreme right of Vox would break into Parliament for the first time also with six or seven seats.

Ciudadanos, which in the 2017 elections was in first position with 36 seats, would now stay at 6 or 7. The PP would continue to be at a low level in the Parliament with 4 or 5 deputies.

The Gad3 poll gives options to enter the PDeCAT, which claims the heritage of the old Democratic Convergence, with up to two seats.

The survey carried out by Gesop for the municipal television Betevé and

El Periódico

, on the other hand, offers a triple tie between PSC, ERC and Junts.

The three formations would achieve between 31 and 33 deputies each.

Next would be Vox, which would break into Parliament with 10 or 11 deputies.

The fifth force would be En Comú Podem, with 8 or 9, and the sixth Ciutadans (winner of the 2017 elections), with 6-7 deputies.

Finally, the PP would obtain 6-7 deputies, the CUP 7-8 and the PDeCAT between none and two.

• The ballot box vote drops 22.5 points until 6:00 p.m. compared to the 2017 elections

• Catalonia is played at the polls to overcome a decade of fracture

If the Gad3 poll for TV3 is confirmed, the independence movement could once again govern, although the PSC may also try to add Catalunya en Comú and ERC to an eventual left-wing majority.

If the independence coalition is imposed, it would now be headed by Esquerra Republicana instead of Junts, winner in 2017 within the independence bloc.

This would allow ERC to try to make its agenda the one that prevails, further away from the unilateral way and in favor of pressing for an agreed referendum.

The majority of the left seem more complicated because, although they have a majority in seats, ERC distanced itself during the campaign from any agreement with the socialists.

The high abstention has been the main differential fact of today's elections.

With data from 6:00 p.m., participation had fallen 22.5 points compared to 2017. However, it must be pointed out that at that time participation was a record due to the political upheaval that Catalonia was experiencing at the time due to the failure of the declaration of independence.

In addition, the pandemic has triggered voting by mail, which may correct participation data slightly upwards.

In total, 5.36 million people residing in Catalonia and another 255,000 who live abroad were called to vote today.

Today's elections, the fourth since Artur Mas began the failed independence process in 2010, have been held eight months before the legislature was exhausted after the partners of the current Government, Junts and Esquerra, were unable to agree on the name of a president to replace Quim Torra, disqualified by the Supreme Court on September 28 for a crime of disobedience.

The elections were called automatically by the Parliament and the Government, together with other parties, tried to postpone them until May with the argument that the coronavirus pandemic did not recommend a movement of 5.3 million potential voters and 100,000 people in the logistical organization of the elections.

The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia rejected the postponement by rejecting the decree of the Government.

Finally, the Generalitat complied with the decision of the courts and accelerated the preparations for elections that had an extra cost of eight million euros to guarantee security measures due to the pandemic.

These measures include the expansion of polling stations, the purchase of protective equipment for polling station members, and the strengthening of cleaning services.

In parallel, voting by mail has been triggered by fear of the pandemic.

284,706 voters have used the postal vote, 350% more than in the 2017 elections. This represents slightly less than 5% of the census.

These votes are counted tonight after having been cast into the ballot box of the voting center corresponding to each voter.

A very predictable electoral campaign and without major milestones has not encouraged participation either.

The main argument of the campaign has been the management of the pandemic together with the need or not to continue pushing for the independence of Catalonia.

The great novelty of this appointment is the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, who left the Ministry of Health just before the electoral campaign and has tried to take advantage of his public projection to improve the results of the Socialists.

In the independence camp, all the candidates are new too.

Laura Borràs (Junts) is the effective candidate of the party of former president Carles Puigdemont, who symbolically heads the candidacy.

Their option is to keep alive the idea of ​​a unilateral independence of Catalonia, although now they do not count on making it effective in the short term.

Esquerra has presented Pere Aragonès as a candidate after the disqualification and sentence to 13 years in prison of the party leader Oriol Junqueras for the independence process.

Two have been the government formulations that have been considered during the campaign.

The first is to maintain the current government of Junts and Esquerra Republicana, a formula that its own members have considered exhausted on more than one occasion.

The second option was a left-wing pact with the PSC, Catalunya en Comú, and eventual support from Esquerra Republicana.

This second formula has been highly questioned in the final stretch of the campaign when the three pro-independence parties, including ERC, chose to sign a document in which they pledged not to agree to any government with the socialists.

The problem is that there is also no clear option for an independence government due to the bad relations between the Junts and the ERC and because the CUP has traditionally not been willing to join a government that does not adopt its anti-capitalist and independence ideals.