Catalonia’s Separatist leader Pere Aragonès is resigning following his opposition, Spanish Socialists Party’s win in the regional election.
The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) took the lead, gaining 42 of the 135 seats as the pro-independence parties noted their historical loss. Support for the separatist party in Catalonia hit 42% this year, a decline of 7% since 2017.
Aragonès claimed he would not back the Socialists. The outgoing leader made his comments after failing to gain enough votes to build a government in the Catalonia region.
The shift marks the first time in a decade that pro-independent parties have lost the majority vote.
The result represents Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s push to normalize relations between the regions.
Historically, Catalonia’s relationship with the rest of Spain has been at the forefront of the elections; however, other issues took over during this election such as drought and the housing crisis.
The majority of other parliamentary seats were taken by hardline separatist Junts per Catalunya party with 35 seats. Followed by fellow separatist party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) will now have 20 seats.
Following the result, Carles Puigdemont, leader of Junts per Catalunya said on Monday that he aims to form a pro-independence government, Al Jazeera reported.
Puigdemont told AFP news agency: “We can assemble a coherent majority,” he added it would be “bigger than the one that the Socialist Party candidate can gather.”