page_title: Republican Left of Catalonia
section_title: Transition to democracy and the years of decline (1976–1987)
hierarchical_section_title: Republican Left of Catalonia / History / Transition to democracy and the years of decline (1976–1987)
caption_attribution_description: Català: Fotografia d'un acte d'Esquerra de Catalunya del 6 de juny de 1977
context_page_description: The Republican Left of Catalonia is a pro-Catalan independence, social-democratic political party in the Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia. It is also the main sponsor of the independence movement from France and Spain in the territories known as Catalan Countries.
  Its current president is Oriol Junqueras and its secretary-general is Marta Rovira. The party is a member of the European Free Alliance.
context_section_description: After the death of General Franco (1975), ERC celebrated in July 1976 the 8th National Congress, in which Barrera is confirmed as leader. In the election to Constituent Cortes of 1977, ERC went into coalition, as it was not yet legalized because of its status as a Republican party. ERC had requested registration in the register of political parties on 14 March of that year, but the Ministry of Interior - a month after the elections - responded: "The name proposed by the entity, referring to a political system incompatible with the one that is legally valid in Spain, can represent an assumption of inadmissibility ". The party tried a coalition with Left Front or with Democratic Convergence, although finally it allied with the Party of Labour of Spain. The name of the electoral coalition was Left of Catalonia–Democratic Electoral Front (Esquerra de Catalunya-Front Electoral Democràtic). The coalition won a seat (Barrera). Some of the electoral promises were the Statute of Autonomy or a referendum about the Monarchy.
  In October 1977, President Josep Tarradellas (which he was itself a founder of the party in 1931) returned to Catalonia and the Generalitat was restored. A new text of the Statute was draft, which ERC opposes because it does not guarantee a minimum self-government. However, in the referendum for its approval, in 1979, ERC defended the "Yes", as it was the only alternative in order to regain the autonomy. In the first election to the restored Parliament of Catalonia, in 1980, ERC obtained 14 seats -of a total of 135-, which bring Barrera to the Presidency of the Parliament of Catalonia. In 1984, however, ERC only obtained 5 deputies, and began a brief period of decline, overshadowed by the hegemony of the center-right Catalan nationalist coalition Convergència i Unió, led by Jordi Pujol. This tendency continues during the next years. In 1986, it lost the parliamentary presence in the Spanish Cortes.
caption: Public act of Left of Catalonia–Democratic Electoral Front (1977)
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