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Movement Toward Socialism eyes slim majority in Bolivia

The party of President Evo Morales on Sunday won a narrow majority in Bolivia's future constitutional assembly, falling far short of the number of seats needed to single-handedly rewrite the country's Constitution, an exit poll showed.

The Movement Toward Socialism will control 130 seats in the 255-member assembly, or 51 percent of the seats, said the poll made public by Unitel television.

But the party fell short of the 70-to-80-percent majority it had hoped to gain and will lack the two-thirds majority needed to have a free hand in amending the Constitution.

The main opposition Social Democtratic Party of former president Jorge Quiroga was expected to control 67 seats, the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of another ex-president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, will have 18 seats, while the National Unity party gained 13, the poll showed.

The remaining seats were divided among smaller groups.

"We cannot speak of winners and losers in this vote," commented Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, a close Morales ally. "Today democracy emerged as the winner, and we have to celebrate it."

A separate exit poll on a referendum also indicated supporters of autonomy triumphed in four out of nine Bolivian provinces -- Santa Cruz, Tarija, Pando and Beni that are rich in natural resources and whose population is mostly white unlike the country's indigenous majority.

The margin of victory for autonomy advocates ranged from 81 percent of the vote in Beni to 64 percent in Pando.

Poor western provinces populated mainly by Quechua and Aymara Indians were expected to reject the proposal.

Celebrations erupted in Santa Cruz after the results of the exit poll were announced, with people shouting "Independence!"

Meanwhile, the national electoral court said full official returns are unlikely to be known for another 25 days.

More than 100 observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) and EU had been dispatched to all nine provinces.

Horacio Serpa, who heads an observer mission for the OAS, called voter behavior "exemplary" and praised officials in charge of the voting.

Some 3.7 million people were eligible to cast ballots in Sunday's vote.

Morales' opponents fear he will use the new constitution to strengthen his grip on power as fellow leftist Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela.

Elected in a landslide in January on a vow to bring in reforms that benefit workers and the Indian majority, Morales sees the constitutional reform as part of a radical social overhaul that would "refound" Bolivia.

The right-wing opposition, led by Quiroga, painted a dire picture of what a Morales-inspired constitution would do.

Quiroga warned some 200 followers in a recent rally at an upscale shopping mall that in the vote for a 255-seat constitutional assembly, "what is most dear to us is at stake: our freedom."

He has also warned of Morales' close ties with Chavez.
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