100 days and counting

The Catalan government is to reveal the details of the referendum in an act to celebrate the event on July 4. It will also set up a website to answer any questions citizens may have and launch a campaign to explain the guarantees involved in the referendum and how it will work in more than 200 cities, towns and villages. With 100 days remaining until the historic vote, the executive yesterday revealed that it will explain all the details of the referendum at a large-scale act to be held in Barcelona, where the president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, and the government vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, will provide explanations for questions surrounding organisational issues, such as the census, the electoral board and the right to vote of Catalans abroad.

The website garanties.cat will also include all information relative to the referendum, including the laws protecting it. In addition, there will be a team of lawyers and public employees to answer any questions citizens may pose. The government’s aim is for the day of the referendum to be “like any other electoral day”; that is, with the same guarantees. For the time being, the executive has said that 4,500 electoral agents, trained and selected from a team of volunteers, will work during the vote. Around 72,000 people will also be needed to form the 8,000 electoral tables.

Finally, two separate laws will govern the regulation of the referendum and the legal transition, according to various sources of the negotiation. The government has stated that the legal base will serve to “ensure all democratic guarantees and the legal security of those involved in the referendum.”