Burmese people cast their votes in the 1990 elections.
Burmese Referendum: Here We Go Again...
By WAI MOE
Wednesday, February 13, 2008.
The referendum on a new Burmese constitution will be in May, but people are still in the dark about the exact election date and the contents of the constitution.
Many Burmese believe the election could meet the same fate as the 1973 referendum which was manipulated by the late dictator Ne Win, say Rangoon observers.
The last referendum in Burma was in 1973, which endorsed the 1974 socialist constitution. At that time, Ne Win’s regime declared that more than 99 percent of the voters supported the constitution, but critics say the results were rigged by the government.
Aye Thar Aung, an Arankan ethnic leader, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that a white box and a black box were at the polling station where he voted—a white box for a ‘Yes’ vote and a black box for a ‘No’ vote.
“I voted against the regime’s constitution in 1973. But when my township authorities declared the results, they said everyone voted ‘Yes,’” he said. “It means they cheated in the referendum. There were no independent or international observers to monitor the voting process.”
The current military regime also held a general election in 1990.
Aye Thar Aye, who was elected a member of parliament in the 1990 election, remembers harassment by authorities during the campaign.
“When I attempted to meet with people in Arankan State during that time, the authorities ordered boats not to take me and my team to campaign areas,” he said.
“But fortunately the voting system helped us and the voting allowed people to vote secretly,” he said. However, the election results were not honored by the regime, which refused to relinquish power.
On February 9, the junta announced the general dates for the referendum and nationwide election, in May and 2010 respectively. The referendum is the forth step in its road map to democracy.
“The approval of the draft constitution will be sought in a national referendum to be held in May,” Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, Secretary 1 of the junta, said in the announcement.
The referendum on the constitution will be the second such election in Southeast Asia recently. Thailand held a referendum on a military-backed constitution in August 2007.
The coup organizers, who ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatara in September 2006, sent each household in the country a copy of the new constitution before the referendum. Seventy percent of the eligible voters turned out for the referendum, which passed with 56 percent of the vote.
The print media in Thailand provided extensive debate on the constitution’s merits. Thai broadcasting stations aired similar debates.
If the Thai constitution had failed in the referendum, the country would have returned to the 1997 constitution. In Burma, however, there has been no constitution for about two decades.
Also, open debate is not expected to occur in the Burmese referendum. No critical political debate has been allowed in the country since the coup by Ne Win in 1962. All daily newspapers are state-run or heavily censored. Many private journals and magazines are printed, but they will be prohibited from writing interpretive or commentary articles on the proposed constitution or political issues.
Observers see the Burmese junta’s referendum election as a move to ward off criticism from Western international community, and a way to shore up support from its closer allies, China, India and the Asean group countries.
A veteran Rangoon journalist who observed the 1973 referendum remembers that the socialist regime took a few years to hold the election.
“But now the referendum is only three months away,” he said. “So I don’t know what the junta will do or what will happen next.”
There are many unanswered questions, he said. “How can people participant in the constitution process?”
Many Burmese believe the election could meet the same fate as the 1973 referendum which was manipulated by the late dictator Ne Win, say Rangoon observers.
The last referendum in Burma was in 1973, which endorsed the 1974 socialist constitution. At that time, Ne Win’s regime declared that more than 99 percent of the voters supported the constitution, but critics say the results were rigged by the government.
Aye Thar Aung, an Arankan ethnic leader, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that a white box and a black box were at the polling station where he voted—a white box for a ‘Yes’ vote and a black box for a ‘No’ vote.
“I voted against the regime’s constitution in 1973. But when my township authorities declared the results, they said everyone voted ‘Yes,’” he said. “It means they cheated in the referendum. There were no independent or international observers to monitor the voting process.”
The current military regime also held a general election in 1990.
Aye Thar Aye, who was elected a member of parliament in the 1990 election, remembers harassment by authorities during the campaign.
“When I attempted to meet with people in Arankan State during that time, the authorities ordered boats not to take me and my team to campaign areas,” he said.
“But fortunately the voting system helped us and the voting allowed people to vote secretly,” he said. However, the election results were not honored by the regime, which refused to relinquish power.
On February 9, the junta announced the general dates for the referendum and nationwide election, in May and 2010 respectively. The referendum is the forth step in its road map to democracy.
“The approval of the draft constitution will be sought in a national referendum to be held in May,” Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, Secretary 1 of the junta, said in the announcement.
The referendum on the constitution will be the second such election in Southeast Asia recently. Thailand held a referendum on a military-backed constitution in August 2007.
The coup organizers, who ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatara in September 2006, sent each household in the country a copy of the new constitution before the referendum. Seventy percent of the eligible voters turned out for the referendum, which passed with 56 percent of the vote.
The print media in Thailand provided extensive debate on the constitution’s merits. Thai broadcasting stations aired similar debates.
If the Thai constitution had failed in the referendum, the country would have returned to the 1997 constitution. In Burma, however, there has been no constitution for about two decades.
Also, open debate is not expected to occur in the Burmese referendum. No critical political debate has been allowed in the country since the coup by Ne Win in 1962. All daily newspapers are state-run or heavily censored. Many private journals and magazines are printed, but they will be prohibited from writing interpretive or commentary articles on the proposed constitution or political issues.
Observers see the Burmese junta’s referendum election as a move to ward off criticism from Western international community, and a way to shore up support from its closer allies, China, India and the Asean group countries.
A veteran Rangoon journalist who observed the 1973 referendum remembers that the socialist regime took a few years to hold the election.
“But now the referendum is only three months away,” he said. “So I don’t know what the junta will do or what will happen next.”
There are many unanswered questions, he said. “How can people participant in the constitution process?”
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