“Votarem”
or “we will vote” became a slogan, a hashtag, and an act of defiance in
Catalonia on Sunday. However, it is hard to speak of a peaceful vote in
Catalonia.
Rather than
a protest vote, voting became a form of protest against the Spanish state, in
the most violent clashes between citizens and the police in the region since
the end of the Spanish dictatorship. Not all eligible voters did vote and the
process is hardly uncontestable. Voting, counting, and the legitimacy of the
result are all questioned. What appears to be a point of consensus is that Catalan
society and Spanish democracy are not stronger as a result of Sunday’s
election.
The Catalan
leader Carles Puigdemont taled of “unjustified use of violence,” while
Barcelona’s Mayor Ada Colau told the BBC that over 460 people have been injured
during clashes with the police. El Pais reports 337 “scuffles” with
authorities.
The Spanish
Ministry of Interior said that there were also 12 police officers injured,
while Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said that the
response was professional and proportionate.
According
to the Catalan News Agency, there was violence and used of “paramilitary
force,” recording occasional clashes between regional and national police. The
regional government claims that citizens would have been able to vote anywhere
rather than their own polling stations alone and stands by “the result” of the
referendum on Sunday.
However,
given the “unconstitutional” nature of the vote, the violent clashes, and the
confiscation of ballot boxes by the police, it will be hard to argue the case
for a committing electoral result. According to El Pais, there were no official
ballots or envelope, with some printed at home. The electoral census is hosted
on online servers, there is no electoral board, and there is no counting
system, peoples names and IDs were recorded by hand and were not checked
against an online list. There were attempts to set up an online voting
platform, but that was too disrupted.
The result
itself is contestable, as the Spanish police confiscated 92 ballots, closed
down the online infrastructure, and confiscated ballots. That is part of the
reason why all international observers were unofficial. However, that does not
appear to be much of a vindication for rule of law in Spain.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/voting-catalan-referendum-becomes-act-protest/