The Catalan referendum: A historic vote and how it all went wrong

The weekend saw a tense Catalonia ahead of an independence referendum that had divided Spain. Preliminary results of the referendum revealed that 90 percent were in favour of independence, Catalan officials said.

At the final rally on Friday, Catalan regional leader Carles Puigdemont claimed that the region was just one step away from independence.

“We’ve got this far and we have until Sunday to win,” he had told the crowd.

“We have overcome an authoritarian state who didn’t want us to get to this point and above all didn’t want us to get here peacefully. But everything they have done has made us stronger.”

Here’s what happened so far:

#The Catalan regional government spokesman, Jordi Turull, told reporters early on Monday morning that 90 percent of the 2.26 million Catalans who voted on Sunday chose yes.

Turull said that close to 8 percent of voters rejected independence and the rest of the ballots were either blank or void. He added that 15,000 votes were still being counted. The region has 5.3 million registered voters.

#He added saying that the number of ballots counted did not include those seized by the Spanish government during the violence that resulted in about 850 people and 33 policemen being injured.

The Catalonian PM went ahead with the referendum fighting the opposition from the Spanish state, which had deemed the poll as illegal.

#Many Catalans managed to cast their ballots, others were refrained from participating in the voting by the police.

#Hundreds of Catalans were hurt as the police stormed the polling stations, in a last-minute effort to halt the vote.

The Spanish Ministry said that 12 police officers had been hurt and three people had been arrested for disobedience and assault on officers.

What did important people say?

Catalonia’s regional leader, Carles Puigdemont:

“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. My government, in the next few days, will send the results of [the] vote to the Catalan parliament, where the sovereignty of our people lies, so that it can act in accordance with the law of the referendum.”

The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy:

“Today there has not been a self-determination referendum in Catalonia. The rule of law remains in force with all its strength. We are the government of Spain and I am the head of the government of Spain and I accepted my responsibility.

“We have done what was required of us. We have acted, as I have said from the beginning, according to the law and only according to the law. And we have shown that our democratic state has the resources to defend itself from an attack as serious as the one that was perpetrated with this illegal referendum. Today, democracy has prevailed because we have obeyed the constitution.

Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona, demanded Rajoy’s resignation.

Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the Spanish deputy prime minister:

“I don’t know what world Puigdemont lives in, but Spanish democracy does not work like this. We have been free from a dictatorship for a long time and of a man who told us his word in the law.”