BARCELONA, SPAIN: Carles Puigdemont, the leader of the Catalan regional authority that organised Sunday’s disputed referendum, has the mandate he wanted, with more than 90 per cent of the 2.26 million who cast votes opting for independence.
Sunday’s tumultuous poll had been declared illegal by the Madrid government as well as Spain’s Constitutional Court and the Catalan High Court. But Puigdemont and the regional assembly are now assessing just how to move forward — and how quickly to declare the region that includes Spain’s second-largest city, its busiest seaport and accounts for almost one-fifth of the national GDP, independent.
Before Sunday’s vote, Puigdemont had said the declaration of independence could come as soon as Tuesday.
In Madrid, Justice Minister Minister Rafael Catala said Spain could use its constitutional power to suspend Catalan autonomy if the regional parliament declares independence.
Protest over police brutality at police headquarters in Barcelona. Courtesy: Mick O'Reilly
Under article 155 of the Spanish constitution, the central government can suspend the autonomous powers of the northeastern region.
Catalonia is one of the 17 provinces that make up Spain. Each has a regional parliament with the power to set limited local laws over purely domestic issues — local taxes, education and the like.
“The article 155 is there,” Catala said. “We will use the entire force of the law. Our obligation is resolve problems and we’ll do it, even though it using certain measures might hurt. But, if someone declares independence, well we’d have to tell them that they can’t.”
In Brussels, the European Commission urged both the central government in Madrid and Catalonia to “move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue,” adding that violence should not be part of the democratic political process.
“Violence can never be an instrument in politics,” the statement said. “We trust the leadership of prime minister Mariano Rajoy to manage this difficult process in full respect of the Spanish constitution and of the fundamental rights of citizens enshrined therein.”
The commission also reiterated that it regards the question of Catalan independence as “an internal matter” and that Sunday’s vote had been illegal. “If a referendum were to be organised in line with the Spanish constitution it would mean that the territory leaving would find itself outside of the European Union.”
The Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal said on Monday he felt like crying following the vote. Nadal, a national hero in Spain who spoke out before the referendum to condemn it, was visibly moved as he addressed a press conference in Beijing ahead of the start of the Chinese Open.
“I want to cry when I see a country where we have known how to co-exist and be a good example to the rest of the world get to a situation like this,” he said. “I have spent many parts of my life in Catalonia, important moments, and to see society so radicalised surprises and disheartens me.”
Rajoy thanked the police for acting with “firmness and serenity” as they attempted to halt the poll. “Today there has not been a self-determination referendum in Catalonia,” he said on Sunday night. “The rule of law remains in force with all its strength. We are the government of Spain and I am the head of the government of Spain and I accepted my responsibility.
“We have done what was required of us. We have acted, as I have said from the beginning, according to the law and only according to the law. And we have shown that our democratic state has the resources to defend itself from an attack as serious as the one that was perpetrated with this illegal referendum. Today, democracy has prevailed because we have obeyed the constitution.”
- With inputs from agencies
