Spain is facing a political crisis after Catalans have voted for independence in a contested referendum on Sunday, which was marked by violence due to the police raids in polling stations resulting hundreds of injured. At least 844 people and 33 police have been reportedly hurt, including at least two people who were thought to have been seriously injured.
Catalan officials have claimed that preliminary results of its referendum have shown 90% in favour of independence. Jordi Turull, the Catalan regional government spokesman, told reporters early on Monday morning that 90% of the 2.26 million Catalans who voted Sunday chose yes. He said nearly 8% of voters rejected independence and the rest of the ballots were blank or void. He said 15,000 votes were still being counted.The region has 5.3 million registered voters. Turull said the number of ballots did not include those confiscated by Spanish police during raids.
Although many Catalans managed to cast their ballots, others were forcibly stopped from voting as schools housing ballot boxes were raided by police acting on the orders of the Catalan high court.
The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, said that the vote was illegitimate and that the the referendum “only served to cause serious harm to coexistence” among Spaniards but he is “not going to close any door” to dialogue.
“At this point, I can tell you very clearly: Today a self-determination referendum in Catalonia didn’t happen,” he said.
“Under the Spanish constitution, yesterday’s vote in Catalonia was not legal. This is an internal matter for Spain that has to be dealt with by the constitutional order in Spain,” the EU executive’s chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas stated on Monday, while adding it was time for unity and dialogue, not violence.