BARCELONA, SPAIN: Authorities and police across Catalonia are playing a complicated game of political chess to either stop or start the independence referendum scheduled for Sunday.
At stake is the future of the 7.5 million Catalans’ place in Spain, with the regional government determined that the plebiscite will go ahead — with a majority giving a mandate to regional leader Carles Puigdemont to declare the region that includes Spain’s second-largest city of Barcelona independent.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his government in Madrid is taking every legal measure to try and prevent the vote from taking place. Spain’s Constitutional Court has already declared the referendum to be illegal.
Across the city yesterday, small groups of separatists waved yellow and red Catalan flags and chanted “Votarem! Votarem!” — “We will vote! We will vote!” They also shouted “No tinc pour” — “I am not afraid” — a slogan that became popular after the August terrorist attacks in the city and region.
As part of the cat-and-mouse game heading up to Sunday’s polling, where booths are due to open at 9am local time, police occupied the Catalan government’s communications hub.
Elsewhere, separatist supporters occupied some polling places, setting up a possible confrontation with police who have been ordered to clear them out by 6am Sunday morning to ensure the referendum won’t go ahead.
At one Barcelona school, Hector, a 43-year-old local, said five or six families would be spending the night there.
“We want to make sure the school is open for activities and at night when they might come to clear us out or empty it, there will be families sleeping or people in the street,” he said, adding that they planned to play ping-pong and cook a seafood dish together for supper. Authorities say 163 schools that are to be used as polling places have been occupied by separatists, and 1,300 of 2,315 schools in Catalonia have been taken over by police.
Despite the Madrid’s government’s measures, which saw 10 million ballot papers confiscated, 14 people arrested for aiding and abetting the referendum and pro-separatist websites shut down, Puigdemont is confident the vote will go ahead.
“Everything is prepared at the more than 2,000 voting points so they have ballot boxes and voting slips, and have everything people need to express their opinion,” he said.
Bands played at a closing rally for the referendum campaign in Barcelona where people constructed the slogan “Referendum is democracy” in big white letters on a stage in front of a cheering crowd.
Volunteers staffing polling stations and using the national census in the banned Catalan referendum will be liable for fines of up to €300,000 (Dh1.3 million).
Puigdemont says that if a majority of those who cast ballots opt for independence, he will declare Catalonia independent as soon as Tuesday. That would likely prompt the Madrid government to suspend the Catalan regional assembly, remove its taxation powers, charge Puigdemont and others with breaking the Constitutional Court’s rule outlawing the vote, and rule Catalonia directly from the capital.
Whatever transpires on Sunday, Spain and Catalonia face an uneasy future with both sides more polarised than ever before.
– with inputs from agencies
