Divided voters return to the polls after bitter referendum battle
In Barcelona there is no sign of the independent country that Catalonia’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 1 October referendum on secession that was declared illegal by Spain’s government and highest court.
But as voters return to the polls today – 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 polarised by this autumn’s dramatic events. Friendships have been broken, families split.
Many Catalans who had mixed feelings about independence, or did not 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 a party that favours independence. Or rather, against those who do not, as 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.
He said: “I was thinking, ‘What if they did that to my son?’ That is not democracy.”
The other side has also been galvanised. Catalans who oppose independence previously kept a low profile. But in the aftermath of the referendum they for the first time gathered for mass rallies similar in size to those achieved by the independence movement.
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.
Now, when pro-independence neighbours bang pots and pans in noisy balcony protests, she said she opens her window and shouts “Viva Espana”.
Spain’s heavy-handed response may have raised eyebrows in Europe, but it didn’t lead to any significant support for Catalan secession. No European Union country has recognised the declaration of independence that Catalonia’s parliament adopted on 27 October.
On the surface at least, independence now seems further away than before the referendum.