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”.
In Barcelona and other cities voters of all ages lined up around the block, some applauding, as polling stations opened after weeks of tense legal wrangling with Spanish authorities.
Voters were asked for their response to two questions. The first was: “Do you want Catalonia to be a state?”. If answered affirmatively, the ballot paper posed a second question: “Do you want that state to be independent?”.
Partial results showed 80.7% of the roughly two million people who took part in the vote voted yes to both questions while just over 10% voted yes for the first question and no for the second, Catalan vice president Joana Ortega told a news conference. About 4.5% voted no to both questions.
There was no official electoral roll but the regional government said 5.4 million Catalans and resident foreigners aged 16 were eligible to vote in the referendum which was organised by thousands of volunteers after it was not sanctioned by Madrid.
“People believed that they could decide their future and they turned out en masse,” said Xavier Bardolet, 44, as he voted in the town of Sant Pere de Torello about 90 kilometres (50 miles) north of Barcelona.
The poll was held in the face of fierce opposition from the Spanish government, and despite a constitutional court ruling to suspend the exercise.
Justice Minister Rafael Catala dismissed the vote as “fruitless and useless”.
“The government considers this to be a day of political propaganda organised by pro-independence forces and devoid of any kind of democratic validity,” he said in a statement.
State prosecutors were continuing to investigate whether Catalan authorities breached court injunctions by opening polling stations in schools and other public buildings to “assess the existence of criminal liability”, he added.
Catalan leaders admit the vote has no direct legal consequences, but hope the high turnout will bolster their political case with both Madrid and other European governments.
Mas said his government would now push to hold an official referendum and would seek international support to help convince the Spanish government to let it go ahead.
“We deserve to vote in a legal and binding referendum and this is what we are going to try to do,” he added.
