Elections in Catalonia set for Dec. 21 are too close to call, with parties demanding independence neck-and-neck with parties calling for the region to remain in Spain, a poll of polls in daily newspaper El País showed.
While the pro-Spanish Citizens Party has a slight lead in the aggregate poll, with 23.3%, it is closely followed by the Catalan nationalist Republic Left, on 22.2%, El País said. Taking support for other parties into account, it is virtually impossible to predict whether control of the regional parliament will go to Spanish loyalists or regional secessionists, the newspaper added.
In October, when Catalonia declared its independence after going ahead with a referendum in defiance of a court ban, Spain was plunged into its worst political crisis since a failed 1981 military coup. The Spanish government fired the Catalan government, imposed direct rule and called regional elections. Officials involved in the independence declaration have fled the country or been arrested on charges including rebellion.
Uncertainty over the region's status has led hundreds of businesses to relocate elsewhere in Spain and prompted the country's central bank to reduce its growth forecasts for the next two years.
