THERE are many incredible stories from Catalonia’s “wildcat” referendum in 2017, stories that reveal the ingenuity and determination required from tens of thousands of volunteers to hold a national plebiscite against the furious resistance of the central state.
One of the best is how they managed to get the ballot boxes into all of the polling stations. The Spanish police (Guardia Civil) had seized the boxes in the days prior to the vote, but the Catalan government managed to get more imported just in time, and this time they were stored at a secret location in France.
The operation to get them to voting booths for October 1 while evading the Guardia Civil was complex logistically, and involved elements of camouflage. In one city, Sabadell, a bin lorry quietly made its way from school to school.
