The Catalan election season is in full swing, marked by Catalan President Pere Aragonès’s announcement on March 18 that he would dissolve the Catalan Parliament and call a snap election, set to take place on Sunday, May 12.
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The decision came after Aragonès failed to secure a majority to pass the 2024 budget, with one of the main stumbling blocks being the Hard Rock casino macro-project in southern Catalonia, which the left-wing party En Comú Podem opposed even though it was not mentioned in the budget.
But this is not the first time that early elections have been called early.
In fact, it has been 14 years since Catalonia last had a government that served a full four-year term, and in the 21st century, Catalans have only held two elections when they were due.
On this week’s podcast, Gerard Escaich Folch and Guifré Jordan join Lea Beliaeva Bander to make sense of the political situation and explain the reasons why this term came to an early end.
We will look back at the last three years of political battles and disagreements, which often revolved around Catalan independence and whether or not to collaborate with the Spanish Socialist government under Pedro Sánchez.
We will also get to know the candidates who hope to lead Catalonia’s future after May 12th, and use polls to speculate on who might win the election, while breaking down what the winners’ biggest political challenges might look like.
This week’s Catalan phrase is “déu-n’hi-do”, roughly translated as “Oh my God!”, a common Catalan interjection used to express surprise.
Get in touch with the podcast team: fillingthesink@acn.cat.
Listen to more episodes of Filling the Sink below or find out more here.
