Today’s Spanish general election is widely predicted to bring gains for right-wing parties, as the conservative Partido Popular touts a coalition with the hard-line nationalist Vox. Since 2018, social democratic leader Pedro Sánchez’s government has relied on the support of left-wingers and regionalist parties, and today Spanish nationalists are mobilizing their base by fearmongering about pro-independence forces and communists.

Yet with no sign of the country’s national divisions healing, the picture looks rather different on Catalan territory. In recent years the left-wing Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) has built a strong institutional base, from villages to the major cities. Already a force at the Catalan level, in 2019 it entered the Spanish Congress of Deputies for the first time, and in May’s municipal elections, a coalition led by the CUP won the mayoralty in Girona, one of Catalonia’s main capitals.

Among the candidates for the CUP — a force bearing comparison to other rising socialist projects in Europe, like the Belgian Workers’ Party — Laure Vega stands out. Of working-class origin and herself a worker in the hotel and catering sector, Vega is second on its list of congressional candidates.