SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA — Two opposing visions of Latin America's future collided in Bolivia on Sunday as residents of Santa Cruz province apparently voted in landslide fashion against President Evo Morales and his leftist agenda.
Although complete official results were not immediately available, proponents of regional autonomy publicly declared victory, citing exit polls and initial official tallies showing that more than 80% had cast ballots in favor of greater self-government.
"Today we begin in Santa Cruz a new republic, a new state," Gov. Ruben Costas, an autonomy advocate, told a cheering crowd. "Today in Santa Cruz democracy has triumphed."
Morales had called the vote an illegal act that threatened to divide the nation. Autonomy advocates deny any intent to split from Bolivia.
The vote became a regional referendum against Morales and his ambitious plans to create a socialist state closely allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Scattered violence and reports of fraud surfaced during the day. Electoral authorities here declared the voting a resounding success, but federal officials in La Paz, the capital, cited irregularities.
The pro-autonomy side was widely expected to win by a large margin amid an opposition boycott and the deep hostility against Morales' government here.
But the one-sided results from media exit polls prompted jubilant residents to flood the streets late Sunday, setting off fireworks, waving the province's green-and-white flag and chanting: "Viva la autonomia!"
In La Paz, Alfredo Rada, the minister of government, said violence and irregularities marred the vote. Anti-autonomy activists cited evidence that ballots were pre-marked in favor of the referendum.
"We denounce the fact that some in the media want to falsify the reality, showing a fictitious situation of normalcy," Rada told reporters.
But officials in this pro- autonomy bastion declared the election clean, and the province's top electoral official, Mario Orlando Parada, said the scattered violence affected only a small percentage of polling places.
Morales had called the vote a ploy by rich elites averse to land reform and other measures designed to help Bolivia's poor. News clips showed the president playing a pickup soccer game in the highland capital as residents of subtropical Santa Cruz in the eastern flatlands cast their ballots.
