This election marked a change for all Catalan political parties due to Catalan president Jordi Pujol's decision not to seek a seventh term in office and to retire from active politics. The election results were a great disappointment for Pasqual Maragall's Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), which again saw Convergence and Union (CiU) winning a plurality of seats despite them winning the most votes by a margin of just 0.3%. Opinion polls earlier in the year had predicted a much larger victory for Maragall, but his lead over CiU had begun to narrow as the election grew nearer. Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) was perceived as the true victor of the election, doubling its 1999 figures and scoring its best result in its recent history up to that point, both in terms of seats (23 of 135) and votes (16.4%), up from 11 seats and 8.7%.