A member of an electoral body set up to oversee a contested vote on independence for Catalonia has resigned, complaining that the plan lacked "democratic guarantees".
Catalan leaders last week set up the region's own "control commission" after the Spanish government moved to block the planned vote, which it sees as a constitutional threat.
One of the seven members named to the committee, the political scientist Joaquim Brugue, said on Sunday he was abandoning the post.
"I cannot endorse the vote because it seems to me that it does not offer democratic guarantees," he wrote on Twitter.
Leaders supporting independence for the northeastern region are pushing ahead with plans to hold the vote on November 9 in defiance of the central government in Madrid and the country's Constitutional Court.
They have drawn up a new electoral register for the vote and will have to manufacture their own ballot boxes and set up new polling stations.
The court last week suspended Catalan legislation aimed at organising the vote, until it rules on an appeal by the national government.
On Monday, the government also filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court against the creation of the voting commission.
"It seems to me we would be doing more harm than good if we carried out the vote in these conditions," Brugue told Catalan radio station Rac1.
Catalan nationalists were fired up by last month's independence referendum in Scotland, which was authorised by the British government -- although Scottish voters rejected independence.
Proud of their distinct language and culture, many Catalans have long complained they get a raw deal from the government in Madrid, which decides how their taxes are spent.
The region has 7.5 million inhabitants and accounts for about a fifth of Spain's economy, but has been hit hard, like much of Spain, by the recent years of recession.
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