Campaigners for Catalan independence are making their final push for support Friday ahead of a referendum Sunday which is fiercely opposed by Spain’s central government.
A closing rally is due to take place Friday evening in the Montjuic area of Barcelona, the regional capital of Catalonia, a wealthy region in Spain’s northeast.
Catalonia’s separatist government is adamant it will go ahead with the referendum despite the country’s highest court barring it on the grounds that it violates the country’s constitution.
Spain’s central government says the referendum is illegal, must not go ahead and that the result will not be recognized. Large numbers of Guardia Civil police officers have been deployed to the region to try to prevent the vote taking place.
Mass protests have been held in Barcelona and other towns in recent weeks in support of the independence movement.
A stream of tractors adorned with Catalan flags and pro-independence posters drove through the streets of Barcelona on Friday, as agricultural workers became the latest to turn out in support of the plebiscite.
One tractor displayed a sign reading, “You don’t scare us. Voting is not a felony.”
People applauded or banged pots and pans from their windows as the tractors passed by. Some wore flags saying “SÃ,” or “yes,” draped round their shoulders.
Polling stations
The government in Madrid has remained implacably opposed to the holding of the referendum despite the mounting tensions.
Spain’s Interior Ministry said last week it had seized almost 10 million ballot papers from a warehouse in Barcelona, as well as voter lists, signs and paperwork for counting votes.
Joan Maria Piqué, international communications director for the government of Catalonia, told CNN that another 200,000 ballot papers had been confiscated this week. According to Piqué, 14 Catalan government officials have been arrested and 150 websites suspended in the run-up to the vote. Mobile phones have also been seized.
Catalan government spokesman Jordi Turull told reporters Friday that there would be 2,315 polling stations where people can vote, mostly inside schools. More than 5.3 million voters are on the electoral roll, according to the Catalan government.
The Spanish Data Protection Agency warned in a statement that people working in the polling stations could be fined up to 300,000 euros ($354,000) for doing so.
‘Charade of a referendum’
“We have to make it clear that there will not be a referendum,” Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour from Madrid on Thursday.
Spain does not “want a part to decide for the whole,” Dastis said, dismissing the idea that the vote is about “some romantic right to decide.”
Madrid is “more than ready to talk,” said Dastis, once the Catalan regional government stops “this charade of a referendum.”
Raul Romeva, Catalonia’s foreign affairs councillor, condemned what he called “repressive measures,” and said the Catalan government just wants to be able to negotiate with Madrid on an equal footing.
“This is not about independence of Catalonia,” he told Amanpour from Barcelona. “It is basically [about] how the Catalonians decide its future.”
Romeva added that there were “7,000 police officers simply waiting to impede the referendum to happen,” in an apparent reference to the police drafted in from elsewhere.
Local media reports have claimed as many as 14,000 Guardia Civil officers are sitting on cruise ships in Barcelona’s harbor awaiting deployment.
Catalan police role
It’s not clear what role Catalonia’s own regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, will play in policing the contested vote.
Spanish newspaper El Pais reported Friday that the force has objected to instructions from the public prosecutor to ensure that schools, medical centers and other public places are not used for voting stations, on the grounds this could cause public unrest.
Polling stations will open at 9 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Piqué told CNN, with results expected around 10 p.m. local time (4 p.m. ET).
Catalonia has its own regional government — or Generalitat — which already has considerable powers over healthcare, education and tax collection.
But Catalan nationalists want more, arguing that they are a separate nation with their own history, culture and language and that they should have increased fiscal independence. Many complain that Catalonia ends up subsidizing other parts of Spain.
