Catalonia holds disputed vote on independence Sunday Nov 09,2014

 

The people of Catalonia in north-eastern Spain are set to take part in an informal poll on independence


Catalans who are expected to vote today Sunday Nov 09,2014 in what is a largely symbolic referendum on their constitutional future
An estimated 40,000 people have volunteered to staff polling centres across Catalonia. Expatriates in around 40 cities worldwide - including London, Paris, Mexico City, and Montreal - will be able to vote at offices of international Catalan delegations.
The ballot will have the same two-part question that was planned for the suspended referendum. The first is whether voters want Catalonia to be a state. The second is whether they want it to be an independent state. As in the recent independence referendum in Scotland, 16 and 17-year olds will be able to participate, too.


The non-binding vote was called after the Madrid government asked the constitutional court to rule on the original referendum which was to be held under the aegis of the Catalan parliament’s hastily concocted consultation law. The court took only a few hours to ban the referendum on constitutional grounds.
Artur Mas, the Catalan president, who had called the referendum under pressure from grassroots secessionists, then announced that an unofficial poll would be held on the same day and with the same questions on the ballot paper. This poll has also been deemed illegal but is being organised by volunteers, so there is little Madrid can do to stop it.


Catalonia is a wealthy a region of 7.5 million people and contributes more to the Spanish economy than it gets back through central government funds. Economic and cultural grievances have fuelled Catalan nationalism.

The Spanish judiciary has ruled the vote unconstitutional but Catalan leader Artur Mar warned against any attempt to disrupt it

Spain's constitutional court suspended earlier plans for a referendum on secession

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the vote would have no effect and urged the region to return to "sanity".
Voters will be asked whether they want a Catalan state and whether that state should be independent
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy urged a return to sanity and for talks "within the legal framework of the constitution".
He said the vote would be "neither a referendum nor a consultation nor anything of the sort".
He added: "What is certain is that it will not have any effect."

More than one million people queued up to cast their vote in the informal poll in north-eastern Spain

People excitedly queue with the pro-independence Catalan flag to cast their vote at an informal polling station

 

Catalan President Artur Mas holds up his ballot while voting in a symbolic independence vote in Barcelona

80% Vote fro independence
Catalonia’s nationalist government vowed to step up its secession drive after early results showed four out of five voters in the region backed independence in a referendum which Spain’s central government dismissed as “useless”.
Artur Mas, the regional president, called the verdict by more than two million voters “a total success” and said it “made it very clear that we want to govern ourselves”.