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| A voter casts her ballot in Catalonia’s regional elections at a polling station in Barcelona |
Pro-independence parties in Spain’s economic powerhouse Catalonia were seen in a position to keep their absolute majority of seats in regional elections on Thursday based on an exit poll.
No official results have yet been published and it was unclear if final results would match the poll, published by La Vanguardia newspaper as polling stations closed.
But if confirmed, the projection would open a new, uncertain chapter in Spain’s worst political crisis in decades and cast serious doubts over Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s capacity to draw a line the crisis, which has damaged Spain’s economy and prompted a business exodus from Catalonia. The separatist parties were seen getting 67-71 seats in the 135-seat assembly, the poll showed. The unionist bloc would garner 55 to 62 seats while the local offshoot of anti-austerity party Podemos would get 7 to 8 seats.
The election had become a de facto referendum on how support for the independence movement has fared since the regional government was sacked by Rajoy following an Oct. 1 illegal referendum on splitting from Spain and a subsequent unilateral declaration of independence.
The first official preliminary results are expected around 2100 GMT and final results after midnight.
