The former mayor of a Catalan city who was labelled a quisling for his stance on the independence referendum has said society is deeply divided as the region prepares for a second vote in three months.

If the political and economic consequences of the Catalonia crisis are easy to quantify – a deposed regional government, a former president in self-imposed Belgian exile, a former vice-president in a prison cell, more than 2,500 companies moving their headquarters out of the region and tourism down nearly 5% – its social impact is harder to gauge.

But Jordi Ballart, who resigned as mayor of Terrassa last month, is in no doubt as to the damage the past two months of confrontation, uncertainty and upheaval have done to the region. Catalonia votes on Thursday for a new regional government, after the previous administration was sacked by Madrid following its declaration of independence.

“I think Catalonia wasn’t ready for independence, but that was something the pro-independence parties hadn’t grasped,” he said.

“There isn’t a social majority for it in the street. What’s happened has brought about a very clear rupture within Catalan society: you can see it in families and in groups of friends, in human relationships.”

In the weeks before the referendum, Ballart was harassed and abused for failing to support the vote, which was staged in defiance of the Spanish government and courts.

“Because I was a member of the Catalan Socialist party (PSC), people decided that I was going to be against it all,” he said.



Quick Guide Elections in Catalonia Show Why elections are being held On 27 October, less than an hour after secessionist Catalan MPs voted to declare independence, Spain’s senate gave the country’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, power to assume control of Catalonia. As well as sacking the regional president, Carles Puigdemont, and his pro-independence government, Rajoy called snap elections to be held on 21 December. Candidates Although Puigdemont is in Belgium and his former vice-president Oriol Junquerasis in jail pending possible charges including rebellion and sedition, both they and their parties are going to contest the election. More than a dozen Catalan leaders face charges, but all are eligible to stand so long as they are not convicted and barred from public office. Among those also running are the anti-independence, centrist Ciutadans or Citizens party, the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, En Comú Podem-Catalunya en Comú coalition and Spain’s ruling conservative People’s party. What it means for independence Pro-independence parties used the polls two years ago as a de facto vote on splitting from Spain and Puigdemont’s coalition set about paving the way for the unilateral referendum. Pro-independence parties will be looking to use next week’s vote to maintain their momentum. Opposition parties will be looking to capitalise on the frustrations of the roughly 50% of Catalans opposed to independence. How voting works Members of the 135-seat Catalan parliament are elected using proportional representation. The seats are divided into four districts: at least 3% of the vote in each district is needed to win seats, and 68 seats are needed for a majority. The electoral system is weighted in favour of less populated rural areas.

“I made statements saying that while this was an illegal referendum, I wasn’t against people voting. I just said that the law had to be obeyed and that the 2,000 public workers in Terrassa needed to be protected. It wasn’t their fault that the Catalan government was going about things so badly.”

Ballart’s stance earned him the enmity of some pro-independence Catalans, who attacked him on social media.

“They’ve called me a quisling, a turncoat, a sellout, a coward, a wimp and a traitor,” he wrote on Facebook at the time. “They’ve told me … I’m a bad Catalan, a moron, that I’m despicable, a piece of shit and a disgusting faggot, among many other things.”

Ballart, 37, was also called a traitor and a coward in the street. Ugly as the abuse was, he said he was more worried by the “deep division” it has laid bare in Catalan society.

Although tensions have abated since the Spanish government used the constitution to take control of the region, they have not disappeared, neither has talk of the ruptura social (social breakdown).

At the beginning of December, effigies bearing the logos of anti-independence parties were found hanging from a motorway bridge in southern Catalonia. Two weeks later, a professor at the University of Barcelona resigned after making homophobic comments about the PSC leader, Miquel Iceta, on Twitter.

The huge demonstrations staged by pro and anti-independence groups in September and October underlined the strength of feeling. While they were overwhelmingly peaceful, small groups of fascists turned up at some unionist protests, trying to stir up hatred and anti-Catalan sentiment.



Ballart said the issue has fuelled discord within communities, leading to arguments when pro-independence Catalans signalled their allegiances by banging pots and pans on a nightly basis.



“People were getting more radicalised and were prepared to insult others,” he said. “It just showed how much political tension had been created on the streets.”

Ballart said he told the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont his government’s unilateral campaign was dividing people.

“He said they were aware of that and were thinking about what to do to get past it. The problem for them now is convincing people that Catalonia isn’t ready to become independent yet. The narrative is missing at the moment … The biggest difficulty is how you put a brake on that yearning when so many people want independence,” he said.

Despite weathering the referendum and its turbulent aftermath, Ballart stepped down as Terrassa’s mayor on 2 November in protest at his party’s decision to support the Spanish government’s imposition of direct rule on Catalonia.

He is writing a book about his five years as mayor and keeping a weary eye on the looming election. So far, he has been unimpressed.

“This has all been about identity,” Ballart said. “Who’s going to talk about the real problems facing people in this campaign? About the kind of country we want to live in; about social policies, about education and health?”



Asked who should be held responsible for the mess Catalonia is in, he said bluntly: “The politicians are to blame for this – all of them. Here in Catalonia, it’s the politicians who embarked on all this without a social majority … who used this issue to win votes, knowing that this was going nowhere and would hurt a lot of people.”

In Madrid, the governing People’s party of the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has long used Catalonia – where it wins few votes – as a whipping boy, he said.

“Both sides have used Catalonia to win votes, but unfortunately the politicians are now trying to shift responsibility on to the people. They all claim to be speaking on behalf of the people. But they are the ones who are responsible for this. They’re the ones who have brought us to where we are now,” Ballart said.