by Our Foreign Desk

CATALONIA’S future was in doubt yesterday after the main separatist bloc failed to win a majority in regional elections, forcing negotiations with a left-wing party.

The Together for Yes alliance of four disparate parties won 62 seats in Sunday’s elections to the 135-member Catalan autonomous community parliament, just short of a majority.

The bloc had declared the election a de-facto referendum on Catalan independence from Spain, vowing to unilaterally secede from Spain within 18 months if it won a majority.

But now it must seek support from the left-wing Popular Unity Candidacy party (CUP), which increased its representation from three seats in 2012 to 10 yesterday.

While CUP leader David Fernandez has said his party will support Together for Yes, the party has previously criticised its leader Artur Mas for imposing austerity measures.

Yesterday the CUP added that it would not support a leader who was linked to “cutbacks and corruption.”

Mr Mas dismissed suggestions that his leadership was in question and insisted that under party agreements he has to be the presidential candidate.

He insisted the vote gave the parties a mandate to seek independence and that they would work with CUP “to carry out the road map” and to put in place the structures in time for “the legal disconnection” with Spain.

But the CUP’s main candidate, Antonio Banos, said yesterday that such a declaration could not now be justified as the pro-independence parties had failed to achieve a majority of the votes cast.

Mr Fernandez said in an interview last week that Catalans must claim sovereignty from a Spanish state which is an enthusiastic participant in the global capitalist economy he labels as “a war machine that robs, kills and lies.”

Anti-secession parties played up the fact that separatist parties won just 48 per cent of the vote.

However, Spanish electoral law gives greater weight to voters in rural than urban areas, distorting the proportional representation system — generally in favour of conservative parties.

Conservative People’s Party Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dismissed the prospect of Catalan independence as lacking any legal or popular basis.