PM's Socialists win Catalan regional poll

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists won a clear victory in the Catalan regional election, dealing a blow to separatists who lost their majority after 10 years in power.

The vote came six years after Carles Puigdemont led a botched 2017 independence bid that triggered Spain's worst political crisis in decades. In gaining more than 200,000 votes, the Socialists managed to deprive the separatist parties of the majority they needed to stay in power in a region they had ruled for the past decade.

Hailing the result as "historic" in a post on X, Sanchez said it would mark the start of "a new era in Catalonia". Puigdemont said on Monday that he aims to form a minority regional government.