MADRID (REUTERS) - Catalan independence parties are seen as losing their parliamentary majority in an election, according to a poll published on Sunday (Oct 29), though the wafer-thin margin between the two sides predicts a hard-fought campaign to December's ballot.

The poll conducted between last Monday and Thursday, just as Spain's central government was preparing to take control of the restive region, which then made a unilateral declaration of independence on Friday.

Pro-independence parties were seen as taking 42.5 per cent of the vote while anti-independence parties would win 43.4 per cent, according to the poll of some 1,000 people surveyed by Sigma Dos and published in the anti-independence newspaper El Mundo.