2015 Catalan regional election
The 2015 Catalan regional election was held on Sunday, 27 September 2015, electing the 11th Parliament of the autonomous community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election. This was the third regional Catalan election in only five years, after the 2010 and 2012 elections and the first one in over 37 years in which Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC) ran separately, after the dissolution of Convergence and Union (CiU) in June 2015 over disagreements on the coalition's separatist turn.
All 135 seats in the Parliament of Catalonia
68 seats needed for a majority
5,510,853 
1.8%
4,130,196 (75.0%)7.2 pp
The plan to hold a snap election in 2015 was announced on 14 January by President Artur Mas. After the non-binding 2014 independence referendum, Mas declared that the election was to be turned into an alternative vote on independence, with pro-independence parties including the independence goal in their election manifestos.[1] As part of the process, CDC, along with Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), Democrats of Catalonia (DC) and Left Movement (MES) would run together under the Junts pel Sí (JxSí) platform, with support from members of the pro-independence Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Òmnium and the Municipalities' Association for Independence (AMI). The alliance, however, failed to achieve its self-stated goal to attain an absolute majority on its own.
Newly formed Podemos (Spanish for "We can"), Initiative for Catalonia Greens (ICV), United and Alternative Left (EUiA) and Equo stood together under the Catalunya Sí que es Pot (Catalan for "Catalonia yes we can") label, a second novel electoral grouping formed for this election. The alliance was modeled after the Barcelona en Comú platform that won the 2015 Barcelona election, but it failed to garner the decisive support of the city's popular mayor Ada Colau and saw a poor performance. Citizens (C's) benefited from its anti-independence stance and climbed to second place ahead of a declining Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), which scored a new historical low for the third election in a row. The People's Party (PP) suffered from its national counterpart decline and scored its worst result since 1992, whereas the left-wing Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) saw a strong performance which allowed it to hold the key to government formation with JxSí.
Overview[edit]
Electoral system[edit]
The Parliament of Catalonia was the devolved, unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, having legislative power in regional matters as defined by the Spanish Constitution and the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, as well as the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a regional president.[2] As a result of no regional electoral law having been approved since the re-establishment of Catalan autonomy, the electoral procedure came regulated under Transitory Provision Fourth of the 1979 Statute, supplemented by the provisions within the national electoral law.[c] Voting for the Parliament was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in Catalonia and in full enjoyment of their political rights. Additionally, Catalans abroad were required to apply for voting before being permitted to vote, a system known as "begged" or expat vote (Spanish: Voto rogado).[3]
The 135 members of the Parliament of Catalonia were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency. Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, with each being allocated a fixed number of seats:[2][4]