CATALANS went to the polls today in a regional election that will test the strength of the separatist movement in the wealthy north-eastern part of Spain.

More than 5.7 million voters were eligible to choose lawmakers for the regional parliament, based in Barcelona.

Separatists have held the regional government for more than a decade. 

But polling and a national election in July show that support for secession has shrunk since former regional president Carles Puigdemont led an illegal breakaway bid in 2017.

Mr Puigdemont fled the country days after his failed secession attempt, but is campaigning in the election from southern France. 

He has said that he will return to Spain when the newly elected lawmakers convene to choose a regional president.

By that time, Spain’s parliament is likely to have given final approval to a contentious amnesty for him and hundreds of other separatists.

The amnesty forms part of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s intense push to reduce tensions in Catalonia, which also included the pardoning of jailed high-profile separatists. 

The election will feature a battle inside the separatist camp between Puigdemont’s conservative Together party and Pere Aragones’s Republican Left of Catalonia.

But no single party is expected to reach the absolute majority of 68 seats in the chamber.