Barcelona, Feb 12 (AFP/APP):More than three years after a failed bid to break away from Spain, Catalonia goes to the polls Sunday for an election that Madrid hopes will unseat the region’s ruling separatists.
But Sunday’s vote could see a high level of abstentions as Spain battles a third wave of the pandemic, with regional authorities ramping up restrictions to slow soaring case numbers after the Christmas holidays.
And in a highly-controversial move, people with the virus as well as those in quarantine will have the right to cast their ballots in person in the last hour before voting closes at 1900 GMT in the wealthy northeastern region, home to 7.8 million people.
Of the 82,000 people who have been asked to help staff polling stations on the day, nearly 31.000 have asked to be recused, despite pledges they will receive full protective suits.
One is Rodrigo Sanchez, a 53-year-old banker whose wife has cancer and was due to go for a chemotherapy session just three days before the vote.
The doctors “told us it wasn’t a good idea that someone who lives with a sick person be exposed for so many hours” to “a situation of potential infection”, he told AFP.
The electoral authorities turned his request down but Rodrigo is thinking of just not turning up, even if that exposes him to legal penalties.
“You have to decide what’s more important — the money or your life … But my wife’s life comes before everything,” he said.
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