A constitutional referendum was held in
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
on 10 May 2008 (24 May 2008 in some townships) according to an announcement by the
State Peace and Development Council
The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...
in February 2008. According to the military government, the new
Constitution of Myanmar
The Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ, links=, transli ...
will ensure the creation of a "discipline-flourishing democracy".
Multi-party
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national elections, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in c ...
elections
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...
followed in 2010.
The constitutional
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
law was enacted and a referendum commission was set up on 26 February 2008. Reportedly, the law ensures the secret casting of votes and requires a public count of the ballots to prove it is fair.
The draft constitution was published and the date of the referendum finally announced on 9 April 2008. Among the changes that the referendum sought to make are:
* One quarter of all parliamentary seats would be reserved for military officers.
* The
Ministry of Home Affairs
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
would fall exclusively under military control.
* Anyone married to a person who was not a citizen of Myanmar would be barred from running for the office of president.
[Many voices silenced as Myanmar vote campaign gets under way]
, ''Philippine Daily Inquirer'', 20 April 2008 Many international media reports suggest that this provision would have the effect of making opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from ...
ineligible for the presidency, although her
British husband died in 1999.
Campaign
Three weeks before the referendum, the front page of the state press was headlined "Let's Vote Yes for National Interest." Many songs, poems, cartoons and editorials urging people to vote "yes" were published in local and national
news media
The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public. These include news agencies, print media (newspapers, news magazines), broadcast news (radio and television), and th ...
.
The opposition
National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; Abbreviation, abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanm ...
called for people to vote "no" to the constitution. However, the N.L.D. claimed their campaign against the constitution was violently suppressed, with activists arrested and material confiscated.
[
The ]Kachin Independence Organisation
The Kachin Independence Organisation ( my, ကချင်လွတ်လပ်ရေးအဖွဲ့ချုပ်; abbreviated KIO) is a Kachin political organisation in Myanmar (Burma), established on 5 February 1961. It has an armed win ...
, an opposition group which participated in the government's "National Convention" process, called on its members to abstain, saying the government had failed to respond to its demands.
Criticism
Cyclone Nargis
Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Nargis ( my, နာဂစ်, ur, نرگس ) was an extremely destructive and deadly tropical cyclone that caused the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Myanmar during early May 2008. The cyclone m ...
hit Myanmar a few days before the referendum, and the vote was postponed to 24 May in the most severely affected areas — 7 out of 26 townships in Irrawaddy Division
Ayeyarwady Region ( my, ဧရာဝတီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး , , ; formerly Ayeyarwady Division and Irrawaddy Division), is a region of Myanmar, occupying the delta region of the Ayeyarwady River (Irrawaddy River). It is bor ...
and 40 out of 45 townships in Yangon Division
Yangon Region(, ; formerly Rangoon Division and Yangon Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar. Located in the heart of Lower Myanmar, the division is bordered by Bago Region to the north and east, the Gulf of Martaban to the south, and ...
. United Nations Secretary General
The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
The role of the secretary-g ...
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Minister ...
called for the referendum to be postponed in full to concentrate on the "national tragedy," but the government rejected this.[ The Junta came under heavy criticism for diverting critical resources from survivors toward the referendum, including evicting refugees from shelters such as schools so that these can be used as polling stations. Massive fraud and intimidation was also reported.
On 6 May 2008, the ]United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
passed a condemnation of the Myanmar constitution and referendum, by a 413–1 vote (the "no" vote cast by Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American author, activist, physician and retired politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977 and again from 1979 to 1985, as well ...
).
Voting
There were many allegations of electoral fraud on the day of the election, including:
* A village visited by officials in advance of the referendum where 185 people were forced to vote "yes" with absentee ballots
* Officials giving out ballot papers already filled in with a tick [Massive Cheating Reported from Referendum Polling Stations]
, ''The Irrawaddy'', 10 May 2008. Retrieved 10 May 2008
* Voters ordered to complete votes for their relatives [ Burmese voice anger on poll day]
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, 10 May 2008. Retrieved 10 May 2008
* Government officials sitting close to the ballot boxes and telling voters how to vote