Four of Bolivia's richest departments on Monday said they would put their autonomy hopes to referendum votes as President Evo Morales called for talks with the nation's nine governors in a bid to defuse rising tensions.
The energy-rich eastern departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando announced signature drives to get the legal quorum of 8 percent of their local populations behind referendums to approve their quest for greater autonomy, officially declared by state officials on Saturday.
The governors of Cochabamba and Chuquisaca have also voiced similar aspirations, as Bolivia's three remaining western departments -- La Paz, Oruro and Potosi -- stand firmly behind Morales in the biggest challenge yet to his socialist reform movement.
Morales, the country's first indigenous president, has alienated the country's rich lowland regions, who populations are largely ethnically European and mixed, by pushing his plan to redistribute the nation's wealth to the poor natives in the mountains.
Tension came to a head earlier this month when an assembly run by Morales supporters approved a draft constitution giving him greater powers and enshrining his pro-poor agenda.
Both the draft constitution and the autonomy statutes declared by the four departments will have to be put to referendums before they can be validated.
Morales on Sunday called for a dialogue with the recalcitrant governors in hopes of defusing the unrest, a day after massive pro and anti-government demonstrations around the country sparked by the regional autonomy moves.
Morales has accused the autonomy supporters of wanting to split the country and has warned that "the armed forces ... are here to make sure that the country never disintegrates."
On Monday, Morales called the nine governors to La Paz for talks today in the presence of European Union ambassadors and possibly Organization of American States representatives.
The talks were arranged by EU diplomats, whose mediation Morales invoked last week in hopes of bringing the two sides together.
The secretary general of the La Paz state government, Alejandro Zapata, said Netherlands Ambassador Martin de la Bey would act as mediator between Morales and the pro-autonomy governors.
So far, only La Paz and Cochabamba have agreed to the talks, officials said.
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