Catalan leader Puigdemont wants to form a minority government – ​​Politics –

The Socialists, who also governed the country in Spain, became the most powerful force. Puigdemont's party, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), made gains and finished second.

Independence parties have ruled Spain's economically powerful northern region for about a decade, and with their efforts to secede in 2017, they plunged the country into its worst political crisis since the end of Franco's dictatorship in the 1970s. Then-regional president Puigdemont, who still had an arrest warrant in Spain for his independence efforts and thus had to campaign from southern France, hoped to return to power in the elections.

However, the victorious Socialists led by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have been unable to achieve an absolute majority in the regional parliament and have to look for coalition partners.