Analysis-Spain's socialists roll dice on Catalan amnesty in bid for power

A Senyera (Catalan flag) is seen on chair after a Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC) meeting in Barcelona, Spain, December 17, 2017. REUTERS/Albert Gea/File Photo

BARCELONA/MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's socialists are poised to take a major political gamble as they consider offering a unpopular mass pardon to hundreds of Catalan separatists in a bid to persuade the region's parties to back them in government.

Sources close to the negotiations with those parties told Reuters the socialists are confident they will be able to secure a deal to keep themselves in power without simultaneously losing the support of swathes of the wider electorate.