Catalonia’s head of government Carlos Puigdemont condemned the Spanish government and police for trying to prevent the vote, saying in a televised address Sunday evening that “on this day of hope and suffering, Catalonia’s citizens have earned the right to have an independent state in the form of a republic.”
He added that, in the coming days, the results of the vote will be passed to the regional parliament to decide Catalonia’s next steps, although he stopped short of a unilateral declaration of independence.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy denied the validity of the vote in a statement Sunday evening, saying: “At this hour I can tell you in the strongest terms what you already know and what we have seen throughout this day. There has not been a referendum on self-determination in Catalonia today.” He also called for unity and cited the fact that the turnout was low.
Rajoy is now expected to meet with other political parties to reflect on the vote and how to proceed, according to a Reuters report.
Rajoy and other political party leaders in Spain and Catalonia have called for negotiations to take place to break the impasse and heightened tensions between the governments in Catalonia and Madrid.
Federico Steinberg, senior analyst at Elcano Royal Institute, agreed that dialogue was needed, telling CNBC that Sunday had been a “sad day for Spain.”
“Now we’re heading for a very delicate situation, firstly we need to see how the Catalan government reacts to what they call a referendum, which is clearly not within the Spanish constitution and the rule of law… but we have to see if there’s a unilateral declaration of independence or not,” he said.
“If that happens, we’ll have to see what the response is from central government and it could be within the constitution to suspend the powers of the region of Catalonia. Maybe they will call for elections there to have a way to measure what support there is for independence and see what actual support for independence and then perhaps to see if we can go back to the negotiating table and fix this which is what most people want,” Steinberg said.
