August 14, 2017. Jordi Sànchez, the president of the ANC, gets out of a car in Illa, a town on the outskirts of Perpignan. There is a month and a half to go until 1-O and one of the great unknowns is whether the independentistas will get the ballot boxes for their referendum. One after another, the Generalitat's official plans to buy them have been frustrated. What few know is that a clandestine plan has been underway for weeks. Sànchez is his brain. This Monday, August 14, is a critical moment. The 10,000 ballot boxes that he has secretly bought in China, and which have landed in Marseille, arrive in three trailers at a warehouse in Illa, from where an army of activists will introduce them into Catalonia.
Today, five years later, Jordi Sànchez publicly admits for the first time that he was the one who organized the purchase of the ballot boxes, although he stresses that he was just one piece of a gear made up of thousands of people, most of them anonymous citizens. “The 1-O was a collective success, not individual nor only of the parties”, says Sànchez, who in June left the general secretary of Junts.
Five years have passed since the events that led him to prison and more than one since his pardon. His accounts with the justice system have been settled, unlike other people who have assumed responsibilities and have asked La Vanguardia for anonymity or have refused to be interviewed. "It is too early to explain the whole truth, because it is very expensive," says Marta Rovira, the general secretary of the ERC, a refugee in Switzerland.
The mood in the independence movement has also changed. The apparent united front of that time has been dynamited. The cracks that appeared between the ERC and the former convergents are now deep gaps. The story of 1-O becomes a political weapon.
Sànchez explains that he launched the operation in April 2017 after agreeing with President Carles Puigdemont. They decided it outside the ERC leadership, who knew it when the ballot boxes had already been bought, as can be deduced from the crossed story of several protagonists. The ERC environment later played a key role in the distribution of the 6,500 ballot boxes, through a pyramidal structure that managed to spread them throughout the territory without being detected by the security forces.
To explain how the operation is conceived, it is necessary to rewind until the spring of 2017. At that time, the plan is for the Government to buy the ballot boxes, as other communities have done for their elections. However, it soon becomes clear that no political leader is willing to take the risk of being accused of embezzlement.
The calendar runs and the tension between ERC and PDECat grows day by day. The two partners accuse each other of squeezing the package. The pressure falls on the Minister of Governance, the ex-convergent Meritxell Borràs, responsible for electoral processes.
Faced with the paralysis, on April 22 what will be called the State Mayor of the process, the group parallel to the Government that takes control of the referendum, is forged. Together with Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras, the leaders of the ANC and Omnium, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart, sit, as well as heavyweights of the parties, such as ex-convergent David Madí or the republican Xavier Vendrell.
The tension between Puigdemont and Junqueras crystallized in one of the first meetings, in a scene that two witnesses, from different political families, have reported separately to this newspaper. Junqueras shows up with a purchase decree signed by him. He demands that Puigdemont sign the document. This one does not take the trap well. “Puigdemont and Junqueras don't even speak to each other. It was surreal, with the two of them there, one person had to act as an intermediary and pass the papers between one and the other, ”recalls a witness. Puigdemont leaves without signing.
The Government announces a competition to homologate the companies that can supply ballot boxes, and there is a complaint from the Prosecutor's Office against Borràs. The contest is declared desert, saying that the companies have not accredited technical and economic solvency. The truth is that the warnings from the Civil Guard, who have contacted the owners, have intimidated them.
Another possibility is that the Government uses the ballot boxes of the Ministry of the Interior that the municipalities keep. They are the ones usually used in elections. The Prosecutor's Office does not take long to order that surveillance be reinforced.
In reality, these ballot boxes are never a real plan, but rather a diversionary maneuver, a decoy for the police, says Sànchez. The underground plan to get ballot boxes is already underway. Sànchez has entrusted the purchase to a person he trusts most, whose identity is unknown.
Marta Rovira will discover the operation in June, at a meeting at the Palau de Pedralbes. "The issue is fixed," the president of the ANC tells him. Rovira is outraged. ERC clings to the requirement that the ballot boxes be purchased from the Government. His argument is that 1-O cannot be another 9-N. It is not a consultation, it is a referendum.
Sànchez already has in his possession samples of different urns, which he takes to the meetings of the General Staff before deciding how the purchase will be executed.
In Spain there are barely four companies in the sector, two of them Catalan. One has the iron mold to make them, in methacrylate. It represents a notable saving, because the mold alone costs around 30,000 euros. And a saving in time. But the same day that the president of the ANC visits the facilities, the company receives a call from the Civil Guard. The plan is aborted.
Detachable ballot boxes made by Guangzhou-based Smart Dragon Ballot Expert are also ruled out: when Sànchez brings one to the meeting to test it, political leaders find themselves unable to put them together.
The chosen urns are from that firm. They are the most practical option because they stack. Three containers are enough to bring them from China and they can be stored in a single warehouse. The chosen model is never shown to the General Staff. Sànchez shows one to Puigdemont, in the trunk of a car, and the president gives the green light.
The order, 10,000 urns, is made at the end of April, because production requires two weeks and shipment by ship another five. It is decided to enter them through Marseille, after ruling out Valencia and other ports. They believe that it will be easier to cross the border than to go through Spanish customs.
In June it is decided to buy another set of 10,000 reserve ballot boxes. They are manufactured in Baix Llobregat, in two plastic companies that, Sànchez assures, ignore what they are producing. One makes the box - a sheet that is mounted - and the other the lid. In summer, a Civil Guard patrol visits one of the factories, but does not detect that the plates are urns.
The order is delivered in September and is hidden in a warehouse in the interior of Catalonia. They are never put into circulation. Some time ago they were transferred to another warehouse, where they remain to this day. La Vanguardia has been able to photograph one of those spare ballot boxes. It's the first time they've seen each other.
The total bill for these urns amounts to 66,000 euros. The Chinese urns cost 110,000, including transportation and rent for the various warehouses used on their long journey. The payment is made through foreign companies and in both cases it is advanced by individuals, who today have already collected the advances. The pro-independence entities have been in charge of channeling the donations and not one public euro has been spent on ballot boxes, says Sànchez. "If you calculate that the ballot boxes cost us 200,000 euros, and the State spent 87 million looking for them, it is clear that Catalonia has to be independent," he quips.
The Chinese boxes arrive in Marseille at the end of July in three containers and, in order not to arouse suspicion, they stay there for a couple of weeks. On August 14 they are moved in three trucks to a warehouse in Illa (Ille-sur-Têt in French). Sànchez supervises him on site. He travels without a cell phone and makes sure no one follows him.
He has directed the operation with total secrecy. He does not even give details in the meetings of the General Staff. That arouses nervousness, especially in the ERC leadership. To the point that Junqueras demands to verify with his own eyes that the ballot boxes exist. Sànchez refuses: too risky. But he insists so much that in the end he agrees to take Illa to someone he trusts.
On the same August 14, urns begin to go down to Catalonia, in vans, cars and even some motorhomes. The activists take extreme measures to avoid being discovered. A few kilometers ahead of each vehicle with ballot boxes is another that monitors that there are no police controls.
From Illa, the urns are distributed to eight warehouses, each one with its manager. Sànchez knows only three, the rest have been recruited by his collaborators. For La Mercè, the 6,500 ballot boxes are already on Catalan soil. In Illa they stay 3,500 just in case. They were never used. Almost all of them are still in the same warehouse.
The most critical moment occurs between September 26 and 27, when the ballot boxes are distributed from those eight to fifty regional warehouses.
Trades are always done the same way. A network of hundreds of people have been recruited, in many cases through mayors, for transportation from these warehouses to each town. Meetings are secured by passwords ("how hot it is today") or clothing. Telephone contacts are minimal and with key words: “botifarra” or “pastís” is a ballot box.
“We lived prepared to quickly get rid of any sim card if we suspected that we were going to fall”, explains a member of the network.
A Civil Guard report on the Volhov case points to M.M., an ERC militant from Sant Joan Despí who is very close to former minister Xavier Vendrell, for her role in the organization. In a registry she seized lists in which the distribution of ballots and ballot boxes throughout the territory is intuited. “Most things happened through ERC because we were the only party. In the PDECat they were killing each other and many were not for the referendum”, says a senior Republican official.
"There was a division of logistics teams, ballot box teams, ballot boxes, all organized vertically, completely sealed, in case someone was arrested," details a young man who acted as regional coordinator.
"An acquaintance met me in a cafeteria in Barcelona and asked me to take charge of a region, with which I had nothing to do, but there was a problem and I got smart," he says. “As of the assignment, I look through my party [it was the PDECat] for one person per town, between 30 and 40, and I ask each of them to find a place to vote. Then I validated the voting points. Some did not work and alternatives had to be found. And it was also necessary to find a place in the towns where the mayor was not an independentist.”
Josep, a CUP militant who acted as local coordinator in his city in the metropolitan area, did not find out about the polls until the end. “The Esquerra councilor took care of it. I don't know how he did it. We didn't ask each other questions." The night before the big day, they summoned him to a house. “We organized ourselves into commandos to distribute the 40 ballot boxes. We were working from 12:00 to 5:00. Every half hour a car or a van would come, we would load them into black garbage bags and they would drive away. All the ballot boxes slept in parking lots near the schools and were distributed at the appointed time”.
Cèsar and Blanca are councilors of Junts in a town in Vallès Oriental. Cèsar received a call from the Generalitat that "registered" him as local coordinator. He was summoned to a meeting -without a cell phone- on August 29 at the Consell General de l'Esport, in which there were coordinators from five regions and they were told that the key date was September 7, when the Parliament would approve the laws of disconnection. He was integrated into a Signal group, which disappeared after the September 20 arrests. Soon another was created. That day he proposed to Blanca that she join him, in case he was discovered. Silence until the 27th, when they were summoned to a sports facility in Vallès. They were about 200. They detailed how the day would unfold.
“The Saturday before, I was nervous because there was one day left and we didn't have ballot boxes; I called my coordinator with a friend's cell phone. He told me to be calm, that the clock would work ”, recalls Cèsar. “The polls arrived at four in the afternoon. An ERC councilor from the neighboring town gave them to me, on the street, I felt like a drug trafficker”.
That day he received another call. Final coordination meeting at the Inefc, in Montjuïc. “We were hundreds of people and whoever wanted entered as they pleased, there was no longer any control. I don't understand why they didn't detect us, it's impossible”, he calculates.
“As a people, it is the most beautiful thing we have done,” says Blanca with a sparkle in her eyes.
"I don't see it as anything heroic," says Cèsar. It had to be done."
