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A referendum to approve the autonomy statute of Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia was held on 4 May 2008. The vote resulted from strains between the Prefecture of Santa Cruz and President Evo Morales. The referendum was declared illegal and unconstitutional by the National Electoral Court.[1][2][3] Final results from the referendum showed that 85.6% of participating voters supported autonomy.[4] Abstention rates were 37.9%.[5] Partisans of the Movement for Socialism called for a boycott of the vote, and the Guarayo, Guaraní, Chiquitano, Ayoreo, Yuracaré-Moxeño indigenous peoples rejected holding the vote in their territories.[6]
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stated in its annual human rights report that the referendums: "took place even though the National Electoral Court ruled that the prefectures did not have the authority to call for such a vote and that they were infringing the Constitution." [7] A United Nations mission to Bolivia from the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues later declared that the Santa Cruz autonomy statute "promotes, allows, strengthens and reproduces practices of servitude", referring to conditions of debt-servitude and conditions analogous to slavery that are suffered by some indigenous groups in Santa Cruz.[8] Bartolomé Clavero, a Spanish law professor from the Permanent Forum later stated that: "Anyone who has voted for this statute supports servitude."[8]
Similar referendums were held in Beni Department and Pando Department on 1 June 2008 (see Bolivian autonomy referendums, 2008) and in Tarija Department on 22 June 2008 (see Tarija autonomy referendum, 2008).[9]