10A Barcelona Referendum makes history with 21.37% turnout

“We could never, even in our wildest dreams, have imagined a turnout like this”. Alfred Bosch, the Barcelona Decideix spokesman, was visibly moved as he announced the final turnout figure in the Referendum on Independence for Catalonia in Barcelona.

Internacional / 11 d'abril de 2011
"This result smashes all comparable results”, he added. He was referring to the fact that this referendum has broken all comparable records, such as the municipal referendum on the planning of the Diagonal Avenue (12.2%), and has tripled the results obtained by Catalan independence parties in the city (6.4%, totalling results for ERC, SI and RCat).

The turnout even approaches the results which gave CiU victory and made Artur Mas Catalan president (22.5%), and is greater than that achieved by the Socialists and Spanish Right (Partido Popular) in the November 2010 Catalan elections. “Whoever says a vote on independence doesn’t interest the people of Barcelona has his head in the clouds,” Bosch commented.
 
This turnout figure almost doubles the threshold of 10% which the organisation had set as a marker for victory. David Vinyals, chief officer of Electoral IT systems for the organisation, highlighted the trends in voting turnout and compared it with other comparable votes. Moreover he underlined the fact that the IT system has worked perfectly, despite the limited resources available to the organisers of the referendum, “which has not cost a cent to the public purse, in contrast to votes organised by the City Hall which recently spent 4 million Euros of the public’s money on a frankly questionable plebiscite”.
 
According to Eduard de Càceres, Barcelona Decideix’s chief officer of Electoral Administration, when the polling stations closed at 8.00 pm, a total of 257,645 citizens had voted, representing 18.14% of those registered as residents in the municipality. Of the total number of voters,13,394 are persons between 16-18 years, or foreign residents, who do not figure in the electoral census. Therefore, of the voters registered in the official electoral census of Barcelona (November 2010), the 244,251 who have voted so far represent 21.37% of registered electors in the city.
 
During the morning Joan Puigcercós, president of ERC, and Jordi Portabella, ERC mayoral candidate, along with Joan Laporta of Democràcia Catalana and other municipal candidates visited the electoral college on the Ramblas. Later Oriol Pujol, leader of the CiU parliamentary group, and CiU mayoral candidate Xavier Trias, along with city councillor Joaquim Forn and Jordi Martí, president of the Barcelona association of the CDC party, all voted at the polling station set up at the Òmnium Cultural building. Other early-day voters included Dolors Camats, ICV spokesperson, and ICV mayoral candidate Ricard Gomà, who cast their vote at the Neighbourhood Association of the Left-Eixample district.
 
Others who have voted include Santiago Espot, SI mayoral candidate, along with Catalan parliament members Alfons López Tena and Uriel Bertran. A delegation of CUP members headed by Xavier Monge also cast their ballots, as did another group from Reagrupament, including Ignasi Planes (mayoral candidate from the Unitat per Barcelona coalition), accompanied by Joan Carretero and Rut Carandell. Joana Ortega, the vice-president of the Catalan Government, from the Unió Democràtica Party, the Catalan minister of Economy and Universities, Andreu Mas-Colell, and the Catalan minister of Culture and former Socialist, Ferran Mascarell have all voted during the day. In the afternoon, Antoni Castells, the former Catalan minister of Economy, a Socialist party member of the previous Catalan Government, cast his ballot.
 
Many other media and cultural personalities, as well as trades unions representatives, have exercised their right to vote in the many polling stations around the city.
 
A team of 50 intternational observers have been present throughout the day, visiting the electoral colleges, and have affirmed the rigour, fairness and transparency of the voting process. 
 
Later on in the evening the final vote count, including YES, NO and null votes will be announced. 

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