1999 Catalan regional election

A regional election was held in Catalonia on Sunday, 17 October 1999, to elect the 6th Parliament of the autonomous community. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election.

Following the ruling Convergence and Union (CiU)'s loss of its absolute majority in the 1995 election, Catalan president Jordi Pujol was forced to form a minority government and seek support from other parties. The hung parliament outcome of the 1996 general election allowed Pujol to secure a confidence and supply agreement with the People's Party (PP), in exchange of CiU's reciprocal support to the national government of José María Aznar (in what would become known as the Majestic Pact). The legislative term was dominated by the back-and-forth relations between both parties, with the most controversial issues being Aznar's attempt to reform the Spanish education system and Pujol's proposal of new legislation on the use of the Catalan language. This period also saw a deterioration of relations between CiU's component parties, Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC), which at times threatened with their split.

Against the backdrop of Pujol's five-term tenure, the announcement in June 1998 by former Barcelona mayor Pasqual Maragall to stand as the presidential candidate of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC) turned the regional election into the most competitive one since 1980. Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) had suffered the split in 1996 of its former leader Àngel Colom's Party for Independence (PI), which was ultimately disbanded in 1999 over its lacklustre results in the 1999 local elections. Initiative for Catalonia–Greens (IC–V) saw the splitting of both the Party of the Communists of Catalonia (PCC) in 1997—which, together with some elements of the late Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC) coalesced into the new United and Alternative Left (EUiA) party—and The Greens–Ecologist Confederation of Catalonia (EV–CEC) in 1998.

Running under a broad platform that included progressive independents (Citizens for Change) and an electoral alliance with IC–V in the three smaller constituencies—Girona, Lleida and Tarragona—Maragall's PSC scored its first popular vote win in a Catalan regional election up to that point, as well as the party's best result to date with 52 seats and almost 38% of the vote share. Pujol's CiU retained first place in terms of seats (56) by a razor-thin margin and, together with the PP, was able to secure a narrow majority of 68 seats out of 135. All three smaller parties (the PP, ERC and IC–V) lost votes and seats due to the race's bipolarisation around Pujol and Maragall, whereas the United Left (IU)-supported EUiA failed to secure any representation. The election resulted in Pujol being re-elected for a sixth (and last) term in office.