SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — The wealthy eastern province of Santa Cruz defied the central government of leftist President Evo Morales by holding a referendum on regional autonomy that appeared to win overwhelming approval yesterday.
Exit polls showed the referendum passing with 85 percent support in an election marred by clashes between supporters and opponents of the vote, which Mr. Morales had called illegal.
Official results will not be available for days.
“Totalitarian centralism is finished in Bolivia,” said Santa Cruz Gov. Ruben Costas.
Mr. Costas called on the central government in La Paz to accept the “new reality” of a freer and more modern country led from its wealthier eastern lowland regions.
Mr. Morales, in an interview with the Associated Press, called the referendum illegal, unconstitutional and dictatorial. The vote proceeded despite an order by Bolivia’s top electoral court to postpone it.
After the vote yesterday, Mr. Morales claimed that as many as half the ballots were invalid. He stressed that the high level of abstention, combined with the “no” votes, robbed the referendum of any legitimacy.
“The referendum failed completely,” he said in a nationally televised address.
He also called for dialogue with opposition governors pushing for autonomy.
“Let’s work together tomorrow for a true autonomy,” he said. “For the people, and not just certain groups — an autonomy that permits the people to decide their destiny.”
A celebratory mood in the provincial capital, also called Santa Cruz, belied outbreaks of violence elsewhere and the threat of more violence to come.
Green-and-white provincial flags fluttered from cars in a city painted with pro-autonomy graffiti and anti-Morales slogans.
Mr. Costas said the first move of a new regional government would be to call elections for a local “legislative assembly” to enact locally drafted statutes and assume “important decisions.”
Neighboring eastern provinces of Tarija, Beni and Pando are holding referendums for self-rule next month, and petition drives for similar moves are proceeding in Chuquisaca and Cochabamba.
As Mr. Costas spoke, more than 5,000 militants of Mr. Morales’ ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party blockaded key choke points, preventing people from voting. Voting stations and ballot boxes were destroyed in the towns of Yapacani and San Julian.
Several Santa Cruz suburbs reported similar attacks against polling places by armed Indian mobs led by local MAS officials.
Witnesses said that some of the MAS supporters were armed with machetes, handguns and dynamite.
At least 20 people were reported injured. An unconfirmed report said a 70-year-old man was killed.
The referendum calls for the creation of a state legislature and state police. It also would wrest control of the state’s considerable natural gas reserves from the central government.
In addition, it would block Mr. Morales’ plans to seize huge soy plantations, cattle ranches and other large landholdings and give them to peasant collectives.
Long isolated from Bolivia’s high-altitude capital of La Paz, rural Santa Cruz has sought greater self-rule for generations. But the autonomy movement took off after Mr. Morales’ 2005 election as Bolivia’s first Indian president.
Mr. Morales, a close ally of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is attempting to nationalize the nation’s energy reserves, giant landholdings and other resources located mainly in the east.
His goal is to redistribute the region’s wealth to poor, mainly Indian populations in Andean highlands of the west. The effort has exacerbated ethnic tensions with easterners, most of whom have some European ancestry.
For yesterday’s vote, a hastily improvised local security force replaced national police, who reportedly had been ordered by Mr. Morales to withhold protection from polling places.
Concentric rings of local gendarmes and a ’’civil guard’’ composed of pro-autonomy militants from the regional capital clashed with central government groups that turned up at several polling stations, demanding that the voting cease.
Interior Minister Alfredo Rada blamed the violence on pro-autonomy leaders.
He said that central government peasant supporters were attacked by pro-autonomy Santa Cruz youths.
“Death to Governor Ruben Costas,” cried a peasant leader addressing a massive rally in La Paz.
Threats to lynch government opponents reverberated at another rally in Cochabamba, where Mr. Morales was scheduled to speak.
’’We have been receiving a high volume of threats,’’ Mr. Costas told The Washington Times. “Life for my family has become hell.”
The president of the local chamber of commerce, Gabriel Dabdoub, showed on television a severed goat’s head he said he received at his doorstep, with a note ordering him to leave Bolivia.
Other central government opponents reported persistent telephone threats.
A Santa Cruz newspaper editor said she has become particularly terrified by text messages that give details of her daughter’s school schedule.
“We will not be intimidated from achieving our goal of creating an autonomic model for all of Bolivia,” said Mr. Costas, who blames the campaign of violence and harassment on some of Mr. Morales’ chief advisers.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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