Catalonia's pro-independence parties could win the most
seats in next week's knife-edge regional elections but fall short of an
absolute majority in parliament, according to the final polls before the
vote.
Five new polls published on Friday put the three
separatist lists on course to win 63 to 69 seats in the 135-seat
parliament on December 21, with 68 seats needed to control the assembly.
They won 72 seats in the 2015 election.
The pro-unity
parties were expected to take between 56 and 63 seats, with the leftist
Catalunya en Comu party, which is anti-independence but supports holding
a legal referendum, potentially holding the balance of power with eight
to 11 seats.
Two of the polling firms projected that
the separatist parties could retain the absolute majority of the
outgoing regional parliament, which was dissolved by Madrid after the
Catalan assembly unilaterally declared independence on October 27.
The
region is currently under direct rule from the national government in
Madrid, which called new elections after a banned independence
referendum led to Spain's worst political crisis in a generation.
A
poll by the Gesop Institute published in newspaper El Periodico de
Catalunya said the pro-independence parties will win 66 to 69 seats, and
another by polling firm Sigma Dos published in El Mundo put them on 64
to 69 seats.
Three of the polls had the leftist,
separatist ERC party favourite to win the most seats, with the other two
polls predicting pro-unity centre-right Ciudadanos will come out on
top.
ERC — the party of ousted Catalan president Carles
Puigdemont's former vice-president Oriol Junqueras — was expected to win
between 29 and 35 seats.
Puigdemont's Together for
Catalonia list, which includes members of his PDeCAT party, would win
between 22 to 30 seats, the polls indicated, with the far-left CUP
taking six to nine.
For the pro-unity parties, the polls
said Ciudadanos would have 27 to 36 seats, followed by the Socialist
party with 19 to 24 and the conservative Popular Party of Spanish Prime
Minister Mariano Rajoy on five to eight.
