FOLLOWING a day marred by violence as Spanish police brutally tried to stop Catalans from voting, the referendum result has shown a clear majority in favour of independence.
The Catalan Government shared on Twitter that, of the 2,262,424 ballots that were not seized by Spanish police forces, 2,020,144 were votes in favour of independence.
176,566 votes were against Catalonia becoming an independent republic, 45,586 were blank and 20,129 were null. Catalan officials have stated that 90% of voters have declared support for a Yes vote.
The final numbers do not include those ballots seized by the Spanish police acting under orders from the Madrid government.
Catalonia’s regional leader, Carles Puigdemont, spoke out against the violence, stating: “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 Government, in turn, defended it's actions which resulted in over 800 people being injured on Sunday during a last-minute effort to stop the vote from going ahead.
The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, said: “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.”
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