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News, December 2006Catalan Election undecisive28th November. The Nov 1st regional election in Spain's most independent region, Catalonia, brought a phyric victory for the centre-right nationalist party Convergència i Unió. The party gained 2 more seats, but still failed to prevent the left wing parties from reviving the previous governing 'Tripartite', now named 'understanding'. Socialist José Montilla has now been elected and installed as 128th president of the Generalitat, which claims roots back in the Middle Ages. More about the election and results: click here or browse the news updates. CiU has won the largest number of seats in all 8 elections since the regional Generalitat was revived in 1980, but on several occasions needed the support of one of other minority parties to govern. Finally, in 2003 three left-wing parties, PSC, ERC and EU-els Verds joined up their combined majority of seats to form a left-wing 'catalanist' coalition. In May this year ERC finally had had enough and pulled out, leaving CiU to guarantee governability until an early election which has just taken place. The disagreement came over the final text of the new Catalan Estatut, the law governing the region. ERC had wanted Catalonia to be much more radically autonomous, but pragmatism had forced other parties to accept that the description of Catalonia as a nation shoud be watered down in the text approved in Madrid. The Catalan Estatut, the region's local 'constitution' took effect on 9th August after a year of hard negotiations and political haggling at regional and national level, including a number of recourses to the Constitutional Court due to apparent conflicts with the Spanish Constitution, notably about what constitutes a 'Nation'. The process is now complete, but in its wake a number of other regions, such as Andalusia and the island archipelagos, have also begun the process of renegotiating their Statutes. Weeks of negotiations seemed likely, but in the end it took only one round of talks for the left wing parties, Socialists (PSC), United Left (EU els Verds) and Republican Left (ERC) to come to the agreement. José Montilla is the first president not born in Catalonia and he recognises his Catalan language needs some improvement, but he represents a large minority of the population who migrated from poorer regions in the 1960s in search of work and a better life. Catalonia continues to be economic powerhouse for Spain. More about the aproval process of the new Estatut Sources: El Mundo, El País, TVE |