Spain's Catalonia region – currently governed by separatists – goes to the polls on February 14 amid uncertainty due to vote fragmentation and a high COVID-19 infection rate across the nation.

Catalan politics is split both across a right/left axis and the pro/anti independence debate. The political fragmentation means that no party is expected to win an outright majority of 68 seats in the 135-seat regional parliament.

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What is at stake?

The issue of independence is ever-present in Catalan politics. While Socialist Party candidate Salvador Illa is slightly ahead in polling, there's a strong chance that pro-secession forces could retain power, which will inevitably lead to yet another showdown with Madrid.

Pro-separatist leaders of the northeast region attempted to push through independence in 2017. More than 90 percent voted in favor of separating from Spain in an unconstitutional independence referendum, albeit with a low turnout of just 43 percent. 

Madrid attempted to stop the vote, sparking large protests in Barcelona, the regional capital.

The region is still contending with the political fallout from 2017, with many separatist leaders serving jail terms of up to 13 years on charges of sedition and misuse of public funds.

Incumbent, and the leading regional presidential candidate from the pro-secession Republican Left of Catalonia party (ERC), Pere Aragones, has campaigned hard to free the secessionists leaders. "I don't want to turn the page. We cannot ignore that they are political prisoners and exiles," Aragones declared.

Which parties are running?

The Socialist Party 

Illa is the candidate of the governing, center-left, Socialist Party. He is a career civil servant, who was Spain's health minister until January, overseeing the country's response to the pandemic. He is now hoping to become Catalonia's first non-separatist leader since 2010.

Polls show Illa has helped boost the Socialist Party's popularity and rivals are targeting him as the man to beat for the job of Catalonia's president.

Illa is convinced the pandemic, which has killed more than 62,000 people across Spain, has made some pro-secession Catalans refocus on health and the common good.

"There are episodes in the life of a nation, a people, or a community, when, despite having very different political positions and opinions, it is necessary that we come together. The pandemic is one of these moments," Illa told AP.

Pro-independence parties 

"The solution of Illa is amnesia," said incumbent Aragones. The ERC's candidate wants to emulate Scottish nationalists, negotiating with Madrid to hold a centrally recognized independence referendum, similar to that offered to Scotland by the UK in 2014.

Central to any future negotiation position is the separatists' continued electoral success, without a mandate from the Catalan people, the independence movement could be set back a generation.

Aragones has set the ambitious target for Catalonia's secessionist parties to achieve 50 percent of the popular vote, something never achieved in a regional ballot.

ERC's coalition partners, the center-right Together for Catalonia (JxCat), have adopted a more antagonist approach to Madrid. The two parties, if successful, could once again form a coalition, although the relationship between the two groups has soured after a difficult three years of power sharing.

Alternatively, the ERC could work with the leftist Catalunya en Comu party, which is polling at around 7 percent, although it isn't an explicitly pro-independence party. 

The pro-union right

The year's elections are further complicated by the rise of far-right party VOX. The party became the third force in Spanish politics in the April 2019 general election. The first time a party on the far-right won seats in Spain since the fall of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Strongly opposed to Catalan-independence, VOX has drained support from the center-right Popular Party, usurping the main conservative force in recent polls.

VOX has courted controversy with its disregard for COVID-19 safe political campaigning. While rivals hold Zoom meetings or socially distanced TV interviews, VOX politicians have conducted walking tours and small rallies, even in the most anti-union of Catalan cities, where counter-protesters have at times pelted them with eggs and stones. 

What are the polls saying? 

Catalonia is one of Europe's most tumultuous electoral battle grounds. Uncertainty around this year's vote is compounded by the chaos of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Recent polls are undermined by between 30 to 40 percent of people stating they will abstain from voting, and another 30 percent of people stating they are undecided about who they will vote for.

Polls suggest that the Socialists or either of the two main pro-independence parties, the ERC and JxCAT, could ultimately be the largest party, albeit well short of an overall majority, making a coalition inevitable.