Catalonia’s divided residents head to the polls again
In Barcelona, Catalonia’s cosmopolitan capital, there is no sign of the independent country that the region’s former leaders proclaimed with great fanfare nearly two months ago.
The Spanish flag still flies alongside the Catalan one above the regional government building. The square where a jubilant crowd celebrated what it thought was the birth of a new republic is adorned only with Christmas decorations.
The movement’s leaders are in jail or have fled the country after staging a brazen Oct. 1 referendum on secession that was declared illegal.
But as voters return to the polls Thursday — this time to elect a new regional government in an election called by Spain as a way out of the crisis — Catalonia has been left deeply polarized. Friendships have been broken, families split. Many Catalans who had mixed feelings about independence, or didn’t care about the issue much, now feel compelled to take a position.
Gabriel Brau, a 50-year-old photographer with little interest in politics, said he will vote for the first time since the 1980s, and it will be for one of the parties that favours independence. Or rather, against those who don’t, because he finds them complicit in Spain’s crackdown.
During the October referendum, Spanish police used rubber bullets and truncheons against voters, who formed human barriers to keep them out of polling stations.
“What happened on Oct. 1 affected me in a powerful way,” Brau said. “I was thinking, ‘What if they did that to my son?’ That is not democracy . ... I don’t want these people to govern my country.” The other side has also been galvanized. Catalans who oppose independence previously kept a low profile. Coming out as a unionist, they say, would have resulted in scorn, insults and even accusations of treason from pro-independence friends and neighbours.
Cristina Calaco, 51, said she was so appalled by the way the secessionist leaders unilaterally pushed through the referendum, “I wanted to pack my bags and leave Catalonia.” But after seeing unionists with Spanish flags on the streets, she was emboldened to publicly display her allegiance to Spain.
These days, when pro-independence neighbours bang pots and pans in noisy balcony protests, she said she opens her window and shouts “Viva Espana” — long live Spain.