"The Republican Left of Catalonia will remain in the opposition, which is where the electorate placed us," Aragonès said, at a press conference in Barcelona in which he assumed responsibility for the party's defeat in the Catalan elections on Sunday (it lost 13 deputies) and revealed that he will leave the "political front line".

Aragonès rejected the possibility of the ERC entering the next Catalan government, in a coalition with the socialists or with the also pro-independence Together for Catalonia (JxCat, centre-right).

"Opposition is opposition," said the still general coordinator of the ERC, without however being clear about the possibility of the party being able to make viable, with the vote in favour or the abstention of its deputies, a government of the Socialist Party (PSC), the winner of the elections, or of JxCat, the second most voted.

"The PSC and Junts [JxCat] improved their results and it is up to them [to move forward]. The PSC and Junts will have to understand each other and know how to manage this situation," he said.

In his answers to journalists, Aragonès said that the ERC, in the opposition, will be a "force for unblocking", will not facilitate the investiture of a PSC president and will not participate "in operations that require the agreement of the PSC and Junts".

The leader of JxCat, the Catalan pro-independence Carles Puigdemont, confirmed today that he will run for president of the regional government of Catalonia in parliament and challenged the ERC to negotiate an agreement that will allow a new separatist executive.

Puigdemont, who came second in the elections, said he believes he is in a position to gather more support in parliament than the Socialist Party (PSC) candidate, Salvador Illa, who won the most votes.

Illa said on Sunday that he will also present his candidacy for president of the executive, without revealing whether and with whom he intends to negotiate the viability of the government, since he won the elections without an absolute majority.

Salvador Illa admitted during the campaign that he would govern with the support of the ERC, a party that has made all the Spanish governments of socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez viable, with whom he negotiated pardons and amnesty for the pro-independence leaders involved in the 2017 attempt at self-determination in Catalonia.

The Socialist Party elected 42 deputies on Sunday (nine more than in the previous elections) and 68 are needed for an absolute majority.

Alongside the PSC's victory, the pro-independence parties lost the absolute majority they had held in the regional parliament for 14 years and with which, through a "separatist front" that united the right and the left, they had been making successive executives viable.

JxCat elected 35 deputies and the ERC fell to third place, with 20 seats in the Catalan parliament.

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