MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday said he would not hold talks with exiled Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont in the wake of the results of Catalan regional elections held Thursday, reports Xinhua.

The elections saw the center-right party Ciudadanos, led by Ines Arrimadas, claim most seats and votes. But with 37 seats in the 135-seat Catalan assembly, she is well short of a majority (68 seats) and would not be able to form one, even if Ciudadanos attempted to form a coalition with the Spanish Socialist Party and Rajoy’s People’s Party (PP).

The Socialists had 18 seats and PP just three, leaving the three pro-constitution forces with a total of 58 seats. While Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalonia party claimed 34 and Esquerra Republicana, whose leader Oriol Junqueras is currently in prison, won 32.

Should the two separatist parties reach agreement, they will be able to form a government if the radical separatist party CUP, which won four seats, supports them or offers to abstain from government. However, after congratulating voters for an election with no incidents, Rajoy ruled out speaking to Puigdemont saying the person he “has to sit down with is Arrimadas.” He said that he would only speak to Puidgemont, who is in exile in Belgium and has a Spanish arrest warrant to his name, when he is “in a condition to speak to me.” Rajoy also said the elections showed Catalonia was a “plural” region and that “nobody can speak in the name of Catalonia.”

He added any new Catalan government would have to abide by the law, obey the Spanish Constitution, and that he would lift article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which suspended Catalan autonomy until the region had a new government. Meanwhile CNN reports, the day after elections in Catalonia deepened the split between its separatist parties and the Spanish government, both sides are in a defiant mood.

The elections gave the three pro-independence parties a slight majority in the regional Parliament, underscoring the resilience of their vote after three months of upheaval. After a record turnout of over 80%, they won 70 of the 135 seats, compared with 72 in the 2015 elections.

But again they won a fraction less than half of the total votes cast (nearly 48%), slightly less than they did in 2015. The party of former Catalan President Carlos Puigdemont won 34 seats—even though he has been in self-imposed exile in Belgium since October. Puigdemont described the vote as a slap in the face for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

“We have won this election in exceptional circumstances, with candidates in prison, with the government in exile and without having the same resources as the state,” Puigdemont said in Brussels. And he issued a challenge to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy: a meeting without preconditions somewhere in Europe to resolve the crisis.

Rajoy wasn’t taking the bait. In remarks in Madrid Friday, he said the vote showed that Catalonia was deeply divided. And he pointed out that a pro-union party, Ciudadanos (Citizens), known in Catalonia as Ciutadans, had outpolled every other party. It became the largest in the Catalan parliament, with 37 seats.