It will be a very high voltage weekend in Catalonia. The population and local authorities are moving forward along the path of the independence referendum, which – if held – will certainly see the secessionist cause triumph. The vote should take place tomorrow, but the government in Madrid is determined to prevent it by all means. Indeed, the referendum was declared illegitimate by the Spanish Constitutional Court.
On Sunday "everyone will be able to vote", guaranteed the Catalan government, calling 5,3 million citizens to the polls. “The referendum will not take place”, the Spanish government thundered in response.
The tension and uncertainty are at very high levels. In Catalonia there are now more than 10 thousand police officers sent from Madrid to prevent the vote in the name of the 1978 constitution. But 63% of Catalans say they will go to vote anyway. The Government has announced that 6.249 seats will be opened in schools, civic and sports centres, theatres, from Barcelona to Girona, from the Pyrenees to the Costa Brava.
The ANC, the first organization of Catalan civil society, foresees "gigantic queues". For the polling stations that the Spanish police will close, "alternative solutions" are envisaged, guarantees the vice president Oriol Junqueras. The Spanish justice has ordered the police to fence off polling stations, seize ballot boxes, ballots and computers.
However, it is not clear how the 17 Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra will move. Their leader, Josep Lluis Trapero, ordered his men to obey but avoid violence. The first peaceful occupations of schools by pro-independence people began on Friday evening to prevent them from being closed. The Mossos also intervened peacefully in some centers to close the gates and prevent other entrances.
The Catalan leaders have launched appeals for everything to take place peacefully on Sunday, in a "Gandhian" fashion, accusing Madrid of instead wanting to provoke clashes. The Catalan government has filed a criminal complaint for abuse of power against the Spanish prosecutor's office for the repression ordered in Catalonia "outside the law".
The Foreign Minister, Raul Romeva, said that holding a referendum "is not a crime" and "is not illegal" in Spain since 2005. The response from Madrid has been tough: the Catalan government and President Carles Puigdemont will respond "personally and patrimonially” before the judges for their “serious disloyalty”, warned the spokesman of the Spanish government Inigo Mendez de Vigo. The prosecution has already threatened to arrest Puigdemont and the vice president Oriol Junqueras.
"We have already won!", said Puigdemont in the final rally of the campaign for the referendum on Sunday: "We have defeated the fear, the threats, the pressures, the lies and the intimidations, of an authoritarian state", and "now we touch that it was a dream." Independence.
