Catalans camp out at polls as independence vote looms
Spanish police set today as deadline to evacuate buildings.
A conBARCELONA, SPAIN — frontation in Catalonia drew closer Saturday, as people camped out in scores of polling stations throughout the region, intent on keeping them open for today’s referendum in defiance of the Spanish government’s orders.
In the polling stations, mostly public school build
ings, there was a festive atmo- sphere, with crowds singing protest songs, playing board games, taking dance classes, playing table tennis
and otherwise passing the time until 6 a.m. today, the deadline set by the police to evacuate the buildings.
It remained unclear how many polling stations will open. Spain said Saturday that 163 voting sites were occupied, far fewer than the 2,315 Catalonian officials had promised would be open for the election. And no one knows what the police will do if, this morning, the peo- ple inside refuse to leave.
“The history of my coun- try is going to be decided in the next few hours, so there’s no way I’m going to be staying at home in bed and watch it on TV,” said Eduard Elías, 50, a computer science engineer at a school in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona, adding that he would leave only if the confrontation became violent.
“Imagine you would have been offered the chance to fight alongside George Wash- ington,” Elías said. “At that time, revolution meant weap- ons and war, but we’re now in the 21st century and we will have our paper ballots
instead to bring about real change.”
The government of Catalonia, an autonomous region in northeast Spain, in Sep- tember approved laws to hold the referendum, which it said would be binding.
Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has warned that the vote violates the consti- tution and that Spain will use all possible means to stop it. But a large number of Catalonia’s 7.5 million residents are likely to ignore that warning, presenting Rajoy with the uncomfortable choice between using security forces to clear large crowds or allowing the vote to take place and thereby acknowl- edging that the nation’s government in Madrid is unable to control events. Among the central players today will be Catalonia’s regional police, who number 17,000 and who have signaled reluctance to use force on citizens who go to vote. Police on Saturday entered
the Catalonian regional government’s telecommunications and information tech- nology center after a court on Friday ordered them to stop electronic voting. The court also ordered Google to eliminate an application designed to help Catalans identify polling stations.
Opinion polls have indi- cated that less than half of the region’s residents sup- port independence — though a majority want to vote on the region’s future — and crowds gathered Saturday in Catalonian cities and towns to call for unity with Spain.
Fernando Satue, 67, a retired mechanic who was born in Huesca and has lived in Catalonia since he was 5, said the mounting demand for independence has made him apprehensive
about expressing his opinions in public.
“Both sides have been very stubborn, the Spanish and the Catalan, and the only victims are going to be us,” Satue said. “I have a very clear position: If this is a republic, I will have to leave. Because I feel like this is being forced on me.”
He said he planned to stay home today, in part out of fear of unrest.
“A lot of things have been said, and at the end there will be violence,” Satue said.
The day passed peacefully in most places, but in Manlleu, a community near Barcelona that is home to many immigrants, four people who were camped out at a school were shot with a BB gun. Maria Lluisa Ines Sallavona, 71, said she was doing Sudoku puzzles “in a really nice and relaxed ambience” when she was hit in the neck by a pellet.