BARCELONA: Catalonia voted on Sunday in a close election overshadowed by the pandemic and which Madrid hopes will unseat the region’s ruling separatists more than three years after a failed bid to break away from Spain.
The vote in the wealthy northeastern region could see a high level of abstentions as Spain battles a third wave of coronavirus infections.
Some 5.5 million people are eligible to vote, but polls have suggested a turnout of just 60 per cent, compared to roughly 80 per cent during the last regional election in December 2017.
To decrease the risk of contagion, regional authorities set up polling station in spacious venues such as around FC Barcelona’s football stadium and the bullring in the port city of Tarragona.
“It’s obvious that it’s not the best moment to hold an election,” Sergi Lopes, 40, said at a polling station in Barcelona.
“But when you take the metro to go to work everyday, you are also being exposed.”
The regional government tried to postpone the elections until the end of May because of the surge in coronavirus infections but the courts blocked that move.
Polls opened at 9 am and will close at 8 pm, with results expected at around midnight.
The final hour of voting will be reserved for people infected with Covid-19 or undergoing quarantine. During this time polling staff will wear gloves, facial screens and protective gowns.
While more than 40 per cent of the 82,000 people assigned to help staff polling stations on the day had asked to be recused, all polling stations were operating normally as of noon, said the Catalan government.
Voters entered one by one to avoid crowding, forcing people to stand in lines outside under intermittent rain.
“They will say there is a lot of abstention. It’s raining, there are queues, we are getting wet... it’s not well organised,” said Josep Maria Prats, a 59-year-old health worker as he waited to vote in Barcelona.
The drop in turnout adds to the uncertainty of the outcome.
Polls put the Socialists who govern at the national level neck-and-neck with the two pro-independence parties which have governed Catalonia together for the past five years. — AFP
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