Former FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta won a seat in Catalonia’s parliament in a regional election on Sunday night in representation of a new party that calls for independence from Spain.

The Catalan Solidarity for Independence party, which Laporta launched in July after leaving the presidency of FC Barcelona, won a total of four seats in Catalonia’s 135-seat local parliament.

It captured just over 100,000 votes or 3.3 per cent of the total.

“We must choose between being a region that pays a lot of taxes and has no significant powers or being a leading state of Europe,” Laporta said on Friday during his final campaign rally held in Barcelona.

A moderate nationalist party, the Convergence and Union, won Sunday’s regional election, gaining 62 seats and ousting the Catalan Socialist Party, which had ruled the wealthy northeastern region since 2003.

Support for independence in Catalonia has risen since Spain’s Constitutional Court in June struck down several articles of a charter on regional autonomy which had been passed in a referendum that expanded the already significant powers of self rule of the Catalan government.

Laporta was the chairman of Barcelona until June, when his second term came to an end.

Under his guidance Barcelona won the Champions League twice and the Spanish league four times making it the most successful period in the club’s history.