MOSCOW, November 12 (RIA Novosti) — A member of the Catalan political party Ciutadans de Catalunya Javier Nart told RIA Novosti on Wednesday that the unofficial independence referendum held in the Spanish autonomy of Catalonia "was a failure for independence supporters".
The results have shown that only a third of the population of Catalonia took part in the questionnaire, meaning only about 28 percent spoke up for independence, Nart who is also a member of European Parliament stated.
"This is a fiasco," he said.
More than 2.3 million people out of 5.4 million eligible voters in Catalonia voted on November 9 in the unofficial independence poll, with more than 80 percent of voters, or some 1.86 million people, supporting independence from Spain. The Spanish government dismissed the vote as unconstitutional, having filed complaints with the Constitutional Court.
"OVERBLOWN" RESULTS
The Catalan Member of Parliament also said that the poll results could not be verified, as "there was no register of voters, no control" and that the poll results were deliberately exaggerated.
"The results included the votes of young people from 16 to 18, as well as of foreign nationals residing in the country," Nart claimed, adding that other referendums would not usually include those categories.
LARGE CITIES AGAINST INDEPENDENCE
Nart said that poll results indicated that "large Catalan cities did not support independence".
"What will Catalonia do without support of Barcelona and Tarragona? This is nonsense," he added.
"In every referendum, apart from those that took place in the USSR and Bulgaria before the wall fell, this would be considered as sort of a political game, but never as a referendum," the politician said.
However, Nart admitted that from a social point of view the fact that a large part of the Catalan population sees itself detached from Spain is a "very serious" phenomenon.
FUTURE OF CATALONIA
Nart claimed that "there is no need to carry out a [legal] referendum," because the " we already have the results".
The Spanish left "has not accomplished its mission". In Catalonia, the Socialist party does not influence the major decisions, Nart said.
In Nart's opinion, the first job for the political left was to explain to people, what the consequences of separation would be. In particular, what secession from the European Union means and what unemployment feels like. However, the "right wing has also done nothing," Nart said.
"Rajoy [Spanish Prime Minister] is Don Tancredo, which stands still in the arena when the bull is released, and who is seen by the bull as an object," Nart stated, adding that Rajoy has not explained anything to the people and based all of his actions on the country's Constitution, but has failed to highlight the risks that would be brought about by Catalonia's possible secession from Spain.
CATALAN NATIONALISM
Javier Nart stated that "Catalonia is a result of historical and financial flows, happening for a long time".
"The Catalan industry was created in the 19th century thanks to perfectionist politics, just as it happens in every other industrially developed country," he stated.
"In Catalonia, history has been transformed into hysteria and the historical reality has been changed, which was evident in Catalonia… The tragedy and the reality is in the fact that history is not what is actually happening, just a perception of events," Nart claimed.
"George Orwell in his book "Homage to Catalonia" spoke of Catalan nationalism and about the ways history can be manipulated for political ends," Nart concluded.
