Thousands celebrated in the streets early yesterday after Bolivia’s Santa Cruz voted for autonomy, but Bolivian President Evo Morales warned that the vote was “illegal and unconstitutional.”
Crowds filled the main square in Santa Cruz city to dance and triumphantly wave the opposition-run province’s green and white flag, while Morales went on television to sternly tell the province’s governor and citizens that he would ignore the result.
There were fears violence might erupt after the poll, which was punctuated by clashes between pro and anti-autonomy militants that left at least 20 injured.
Bolivia’s military chiefs have already said they view the autonomy move as a threat to national territorial integrity.
The crisis is set to deepen next month when three other opposition-run provinces in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands hold their own autonomy referendums. Two more of Bolivia’s nine provinces are also thinking of following.
An official partial count of 22 percent of the ballots showed that Santa Cruz voters approved autonomy by 82 percent.
Santa Cruz provincial electoral commission officials said 18 percent of the ballots were against the proposal.
They did not immediately give turnout figures. The government had urged its supporters to boycott the vote.
Television exit polls for all the province had put approval of the autonomy measures at 85 percent.
The referendum has caused concern as the region sits atop natural gas fields that are vital to the economy of Bolivia, South America’s poorest nation. It also has the country’s biggest farming properties, concentrated in the hands of just a few families, several of which helped organize the referendum.
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
Taiwan must invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to keep abreast of the next technological leap toward automation, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said at the luanch ceremony of Taiwan AI and Robots Alliance yesterday. The world is on the cusp of a new industrial revolution centered on AI and robotics, which would likely lead to a thorough transformation of human society, she told an event marking the establishment of a national AI and robotics alliance in Taipei. The arrival of the next industrial revolution could be a matter of years, she said. The pace of automation in the global economy can
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,