Bolivians vote on reform and regional autonomy

LA PAZ, Bolivia, July 2 (Reuters) Bolivians will elect a national assembly today to rewrite the constitution, a project President Evo Morales says will cement his leftist reforms and empower the poor, indigenous majority.

Constitutional reform was a key election promise of coca farmer Morales, who took office as the South American country's first indigenous president in January vowing to end 500 years of domination by a white elite.

From the country's mountainous west to tropical east, polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (1730 Ist hr) for the ballot, which includes a referendum on greater regional autonomy.

Morales was showered with confetti and draped with a wreath of coca leaves as he arrived to vote minutes after polls opened in his home village in the coca-farming Chapare region.

It is Morales' first electoral test and polls suggest his party will win a big majority in the constitutional assembly.

In the final days of campaigning, he predicted it would win 70 per cent of the seats, which he said would allow ''the consolidation of change''.

Morales nationalized the country's key energy industry in May and he has vowed to entrench state control of all natural resources in the constitution.

The referendum on giving the country's nine regions greater autonomy from central government generated the most tension in a campaign that produced few concrete proposals and largely failed to capture voters' imagination.

Morales backed a ''no'' vote in the referendum, which analysts say could put him on a collision course with the powerful pro-autonomy lobby of wealthy Santa Cruz province, an opposition stronghold.

Tens of thousands of autonomy supporters took to the streets of the province's capital last week to back a ''yes'' vote. Morales has said the assembly -- which his party is expected to dominate -- will decide the issue.

Opposition parties have sought to exploit fears about the influence of Morales' ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

RADICAL REFORMS Eighty-one per cent of Bolivians support Morales, according to a Mori poll in the weekly La Epoca last week, and critics fear his government will seek to stamp radical reforms on the constitution.

Other government proposals include giving indigenous communities the right to decide how to manage their land and resources and the autonomy to administer justice and local government following their traditions.

It also wants to add the rainbow indigenous flag to the list of national symbols and switch to a secular state.

Bolivia's constitution has undergone dozens of reforms, but this is the first time a reform assembly is to be directly elected. The 255-member assembly will sit in the city of Sucre, where Bolivian independence was declared in 1825.

Constitutional reform is a key demand of the social groups that toppled two governments from 2003 to 2005 amid violence in Bolivia, which has been dominated by a European-descended elite since the Spanish arrived 500 years ago.

The process is likely to be watched by indigenous groups in neighboring Peru and Ecuador seeking similar reforms.

Morales, an Aymara Indian, has said rewriting the constitution will mark a new beginning for Bolivia and ''the second liberation of the Bolivian people''.

REUTERS CH BST1850