Plans to hold a referendum vote on independence from Spain next month was called off Tuesday by the leader of Spain's wealthy Catalonia region, the Associated Press reported. Instead, an unofficial "consultation of citizens" poll will take place to gauge secessionist sentiment.
Catalonia, which has 7.5 million people, is a wealthy region in Spain's northeast with its own language and culture. For several years, separatists have been attempting to carve out a new Mediterranean nation by breaking away from Spain.
Fuelled by Spain's economic stagnation and a refusal by Madrid to meet regional demands for more autonomy, specifically on taxes, secessionist sentiment has soared, with a poll showing that most Catalans "support holding an independence referendum and around half favor ending centuries-old ties with Spain," Voice of America reported.
But when the Spanish government challenged the Nov. 9 referendum on the grounds that it violated clauses in Spain's constitution which specified that only the national government could call referendums on sovereignty, the country's Constitutional Court suspended the vote last month until further ruling, which eventually forced Artur Mas to drop his referendum plans.
However, the Catalan regional president said the referendum would still go ahead on the same day with a "consultation of citizens" poll, deemed to be within the law. The results of the "preliminary" ballot will be out on Nov. 10, he added without offering further details.
Since the independence vote would have been nonbinding, the poll will question residents on whether they believe Catalonia should be a state, and, if so, whether it should be independent, according to BBC News.
"It means there will be polling stations open, with ballot boxes and ballots. It will depend on the people for a strong enough participation to show that people here want to vote," Mas told a news conference in Barcelona. "We can't apply the decree [to hold a referendum] but it will be possible to vote."
But the watered-down new vote plan was called "a massive opinion poll" by Alicia Sanchez-Camacho of Spain's ruling Popular Party, with regional Catalan politicians claiming that it meant nothing.
In addition, calls for Mas to step down or announce early regional elections were made by the leader of the Citizens party, Albert Rivera. "We will not participate in this kind of fictitious referendum," Rivera said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy welcomed the announcement and called for dialog with Catalan authorities.
"The fact that the referendum is not taking place is excellent news," he said at an event in Madrid.
"We need to go over certain things, we need to dialog, we need to talk. A lot of us want to live together because we've done many things together."
Although Scotland voters faced defeat in September's landmark referendum on independence from the United Kingdom, the campaign had left Catalan nationalists inspired.
"This is a powerful and strong message that the UK is sending to the entire world - that if there is such a conflict elsewhere in the world, you have the right way to try to resolve these differences," Mas said at the time. "So it is not a setback, it is a very positive message for us and should be for the central institutions in Madrid."
