Country calm amid referendum

EL ALTO, Bolivia — Calm hung over this rambling slum city yesterday as its Indian residents voted in a national referendum to determine how the nation will use its reserves of natural gas.

Unofficial counts by Bolivia’s state TV and the leading PAT private TV channel last night indicated that voters had said yes to each of five questions, calling for greater state control and continued natural-gas exports.

Threats made by Indian leaders to disrupt the election by burning urns and staging massive, road-blocking protests proved empty.

“The five questions have been answered, each one with a yes,” President Carlos Mesa said.

If confirmed by the official count, the results likely would ensure that Mr. Mesa stays in power until 2007 and lend the Andean country some political stability after a bloody Indian revolt ousted the previous president last year.

A 24-hour ban on motorized transit left the streets quiet in El Alto, where children played soccer and families strolled to the polls and open-air markets. The vote also went smoothly throughout the rest of Bolivia.

The lack of incidents were a victory for Mr. Mesa, who has staked his mandate on the success of the referendum.

The battle over who will profit from Bolivia’s natural gas pits the nation’s poor Indian majority against elites who say Bolivia needs the foreign investment that more exports would bring. The country has almost no middle class.

Anger over a plan to export gas to the United States through Chile, Bolivia’s historic enemy, prompted a revolt in October that forced President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada from office.

Yesterday’s vote marked the first of many hurdles for Mr. Mesa, who is at odds with conservative parties and business interests in addition to the combative unions and social movements that drove his predecessor from power.

Even if a majority of voters approve all five of the referendum’s questions on what to do with the gas, a high rate of abstention combined with a large number of blank or spoiled ballots threatens to undermine the vote’s legitimacy.

Indian leaders opposed to the referendum have called for a boycott of the vote, by either abstaining or spoiling ballots.

Presidential adviser Ricardo Paz estimated that abstention would be at least 40 percent, despite hefty fines for eligible voters who do not participate.

Early results were not expected until late last night.

“We’re afraid,” Mr. Paz said. “The referendum’s biggest enemy is abstention. If it’s higher than 50 percent, the results are going to be questioned.”

El Alto, on the northwestern edge of the capital, La Paz, was the epicenter of the Indian revolt in October.

Yesterday, a single roadblock in the Senkata neighborhood, known for its rebelliousness, drew a few dozen protesters, who burned tires, whistled and threw rocks at an occasional passing convoy of heavily armed police.

Milling around a dusty courtyard of a nearby school, Juan Vizcarra said he would vote later in the day — only in order to avoid being fined. He said he would spoil his ballot.

“This referendum has come without asking the people what we want,” said Mr. Vizcarra, a 45-year-old unemployed construction worker who makes ends meet selling homegrown potatoes on the street.

“We didn’t ask for the referendum in our fight in October. We asked for the nationalization of our hydrocarbons and that they be industrialized in Bolivia.”

The Indian-based unions and social movements opposed to the referendum say it is ambiguous and does not ask whether the nation’s natural gas should be nationalized.

Mr. Mesa is opposed to nationalization. The referendum asks Bolivians whether the state-owned oil and gas company should be strengthened and whether the state should recuperate ownership of natural gas after it is extracted, among other questions.

Despite strong opposition to the Mesa government in El Alto, many people cast their vote in support of at least some of the referendum’s questions.

“I think we’re taking a step forward with this referendum and with this government,” said 22-year-old Rosa Aguilar, a university student who participated in the October protests. “We’re not as oppressed as we were before. We’re aware of how our natural resources are being exploited, and if the referendum is approved, things are going to get better.”