
Bloomberg
At least 500 Spanish police officers were driven out of their hotels by angry locals last night as Catalan separatists pushed back against state forces after the crackdown on their illegal vote for independence.
“This is a mafia behavior,†Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said in a televised statement on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is fighting to maintain his authority after 2.3 million Catalans voted in Sunday’s makeshift referendum and the regional police force ignored orders to prevent the ballot. With 17,000 officers in the rebel region, the ambivalence of the Catalan police
force is becoming a major headache for Rajoy as he mulls if, and when, to use Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to take direct control of the rebel region.
Spain’s benchmark stock index was the worst performer among major European markets, falling 0.8 percent at 12:40 p.m. in Madrid after a 1.2 percent decline in the previous session.
Catalan officers assured Madrid that they’d be able to shut down Sunday’s vote without help from the National Police and didn’t seek backup until the vote was already under way, the central government’s representative in the region, Enric Millo, said at a Tuesday briefing in Barcelona, where access to his offices was blocked by protests. Events on the ground also suggest Catalan police officials didn’t make good on their pledge to Madrid. Patrol cars were on the streets of Barcelona before 6 am on Sunday but didn’t seal off polling stations and ballot organisers cheered as they drove past.
As the situation spiraled out of control on Sunday, Rajoy sent in the national police to raid polling stations and saw them attack protesters with batons and rubber bullets, earning criticism from United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and observers around the world.
Tensions between the National Police and their Catalan colleagues are mounting, with Spanish officers saying their men have been put in a difficult position because the Catalans have refused to do their jobs. Minor scuffles broke out on Sunday between the rival units.
In Madrid, Rajoy is failing to forge a united political front to confront the separatist push under mounting pressure from his base.
The conservative daily ABC printed a calendar on its front page on Tuesday, saying “Two days later, the leaders of the coup remain in their posts at the regional government.â€
Traffic was halted on both the main highways connecting the Catalan capital with the rest
of Spain.