Significance:
Home to 85% of Bolivia's natural gas reserves, Tarija is the fourth and final
department to hold a vote on autonomy. The support for autonomy is not a
surprise. Final results are scheduled to be released on 25 June, but two TV
channels, ATB and Unitel put the “yes" vote at between 79% and 80% and the “no"
vote at between 19.7% and 21%. The TV channels reckoned that abstention at
34.8%, was the lowest registered in the four departments that have held autonomy
referendums. The other three departments to hold referendums were Santa Cruz,
Beni and Pando. Together with Tarija, these departments form the Media Luna
bloc.
As in the other votes
President Evo Morales and the federal government pointed to high abstention
levels as evidence of the autonomists' failure. In Tarija Morales flagged up the
irregularity of voter lists and large number of people excluded from the
electoral register. He said this was an attempt to reduce abstention levels and
his spokesperson, Iván Canelas, claimed that if the number of voters excluded
from the current lists was added to those who did not turn out to vote,
abstention levels were over 55%.
Squabbles over voter lists
were concentrated particularly in the towns of Bermejo and Yacuiba, capital of
Tarija's Gran Chaco province. Yacuiba in particular had proved a recent source
of problems for Tarija prefect, Mario Cossío last week after local leaders
threatened to take action if he failed to recognise elections held in the city
to choose a deputy prefect and departmental councilor. The Gran Chaco
autonomists want to form a 10th department in the country, and so split from the
rest of Tarija. The new Chaco department would take in the Chaco areas in
the neighbouring departments of Chuquisaca and Santa Cruz.
Under the catchy slogan
“autonomous Bolivia and not only the Media Luna", prefect of Cochabamba, Manfred
Reyes Villa and Aydeé Nava, mayor of Chuquisaca's capital, Sucre, travelled to
Tarija to support Cossío and declared that Cochabamba and Chuquisaca would be
holding similar votes. Chuquisaca is currently without a prefect, after David
Sánchez, an ally of the Morales's Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party resigned
last November. The department is due to hold elections to select a new prefect
on 29 June.
The four Media Luna
departments all voted for increased autonomy in the July 2006 national
referendum on autonomy, but Chuquisaca and Cochabamba both voted no. The
government argued that the national, not departmental, result was what counted
and claimed that this meant that there was no basis for increasing departmental
autonomy.
The Chuquisaca election will be a leading indicator for
the main political event of the next few months. This is the recall referendum
on 10 August which will either confirm Morales and the country's nine prefects
in office or remove them.
The opposition prefects who face a much stiffer
challenge than Morales does to hang on to their jobs are becoming increasingly
hostile to the recall vote. The irony is that the recall referendum was revived
and supported by the national opposition party, Podemos. It is also a legal vote,
approved by both congress and the Corte Nacional Electoral, unlike the autonomy
referendums.
On 22 June national daily
La Razón published declarations by the so-called national democratic
council (Conalde), an entity formed by the opposition prefects, expressing
disagreement with the recall vote, on the basis that it would not resolve the
country's political crisis. The latest opinion poll by Ipsos Apoyo, Opinión y
Mercado showed that most Bolivians continue to express support for Morales, with
55% of respondents approving of the president's performance, up one point since
April.End of preview - This article contains approximately 629 words.
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