Salvador Illa of the Socialist Party of Catalonia was sworn in on Aug. 10 as the region’s president, heading the first regional government led by a leftist, anti-independence party in 14 years.* During the investiture debate that took place two days before, Carles Puigdemont—the leader in exile of one of Catalonia’s separatist parties—made a dramatic appearance in Barcelona in an attempt to draw attention to himself and breathe new life into the independence movement. Nevertheless, the investiture vote took place without incident, marking a turning point for Catalan politics and leaving separatism on life support.
Illa, the calm and bespectacled former Spanish health minister, won with the minimum of 68 votes required to form a minority government, including 42 from his own party, as well as 20 from the leftist pro-independence Esquerra Republicana, or ERC, and six more from the left-wing Comuns Sumar.
It’s a win for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his preference for dialogue and negotiation with Catalan leaders, even if he made two big sacrifices to get there. Last November, he negotiated an unpopular amnesty deal for crimes committed by activists and politicians in connection with the two independence referendums held in Catalonia in 2014 and 2017. In exchange, Sanchez gained the support he needed from the two separatist Catalan parties, ERC and Puigdemont’s Together for Catalonia, or Junts, to win reelection and form a new central government in Madrid.