MADRID, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria again insisted on Wednesday that the Catalan independence referendum will not take place.
The referendum in the northeast region of Spain is scheduled to be held on Sunday despite the Spanish Constitutional Court declaring it illegal.
Speaking in the Spanish Congress, Saenz de Santamaria said that the Catalan Regional Assembly "wanted to end with decades of democratic stability" in Spain.
Calling the referendum "anti-democratic and illegal," the deputy PM insisted that it "would not be possible" to happen.
The Spanish Socialist Party's (PSOE) Parliamentary spokesperson Margarita Robles said the government led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy should not limit itself to moving in the "realm of the Prosecutor and the judiciary," and asked Rajoy to look for "a political route and dialogue." The spokesperson also called on Catalan authorities to "stop the madness" in order to prevent a "social confrontation."
Pablo Iglesias, the leader of left wing party Podemos also made an appeal for calm, saying "these situations are resolved with dialogue." He also voiced his worry that Sunday could see violence in the Catalan region.
"There are some who appeal for calm and dialogue and others who look for solutions with batons and rubber bullets," said Iglesias in an interview on Spanish state radio network RTVE.
All of these declarations come a day after the Catalan regional police (Mossos d'Esquadra) received the order from the Catalan Prosecutor's office to seal off schools which have been designated as polling stations.
The Mossos have been instructed to take the keys to the schools and seal them off, as well as seize any material that could be used in the referendum and ensure that nobody is allowed to vote in a 100 meter radius of the building.
