Two separatist parties — Junts Per Catalunya, or Together for Catalonia, and Esquerra Republicana or Republican Left — scored 34 and 32 seats, respectively. Rajoy, responded to the regional parliament’s unilateral independence declaration later that month by dissolving the Catalan government and calling new regional elections — the vote that took place Thursday. In Barcelona, the region’s capital, Carmen Canut stood in line at her neighborhood school to cast a vote for Together for Catalonia. Under the Spanish regional vote system, people vote for parties, not individual candidates, and the parties then allocate seats from their “lists” for the four-year parliamentary terms. European leaders have sided with the Madrid government in opposing Catalan independence, fearing that secession would galvanize other separatist movements across the continent.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 21, 2017 14:30 UTC