SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia—Local authorities in Bolivia's wealthiest region claimed victory Monday in their unprecedented weekend vote for autonomy, but the central government said abstentions made the vote invalid.
The vote in agricultural and energy producing Santa Cruz was a repudiation of the leftist reform agenda of President Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in Bolivia, South America's poorest country.
"A complete success for democracy," said the Santa Cruz electoral court, which said that with more than a third of votes counted, 84 percent voted for autonomy, and 16 percent against.
At least 18 people were injured and one man died during clashes between pro-autonomy and government backers during the voting.
The electoral court and the central government agreed that some 36 percent to 40 percent of eligible voters boycotted polls, and the central government said that was high enough abstention to make the vote invalid.
"What is notable here is the phenomenal level of abstention," said Juan Ramon Quintana, Morales' cabinet chief. "This vote was illegal. Shouldn't we note how many people abstained here?"
The vote theoretically would allow Santa Cruz to elect its own leaders and create its own tax and justice system and also to control its own natural resources, including about 10 percent of Bolivia's oil and natural gas reserves.
"Things are going to change because we are going to be able to manage our own resources and elect our own governors," said Jose Castro, 50, a chauffeur.
Door to Dialogue
In a speech Sunday night Morales described the referendum as illegitimate, but also left the door open to dialogue between the central government and leaders in Bolivia's wealthy, eastern lowlands, where three other regions are planning their own autonomy referendums.
The autonomy vote has aggravated a traditional divide in Bolivia between the lowlands, where large landowners of mainly European descent resent the political leadership from the western highlands where most people are indigenous.
But many poor people in Santa Cruz—home to roughly a quarter of Bolivia's 9 million people—said they support Morales and feel the autonomy vote is just going to spread divisions.
"Things are only going to get worse now because one side says it won and the other side says it won too. There will be more conflict now," said Rodrigo, 22, as he sold stationery in the poorest sector of Santa Cruz city.
Morales says the referendums are a bid to destabilize his government, engineered by conservative rivals who oppose his efforts to break up large land holdings and reform the constitution to empower the poor, indigenous majority.
Quintana said the government was open to dialogue as long as it included discussions on land reforms, a key element of Morales' election campaign in 2005.
"Now Morales is going to have to negotiate, entering some of these autonomy demands into the discussion about the new constitution," said Ricardo Israel, a political scientist with Chile's autonomous university in Santiago.
Feeds