Myanmar holds poll despite chaos after the cyclone

Myanmar held a rare election to approve a new army-drafted constitution yesterday while many of the 1.5 million survivors of a devastating cyclone waited in vain for a concerted aid effort to bring them food and medecine.

Though nervous voters were under orders to vote 'yes' to a constitution that will enshrine a dominant role for the ruling military, it was the first real election in nearly two decades.

Army-controlled MRTV ran a final Burmese-style 'get the vote out' propaganda blitz featuring jaunty actresses singing 'Let's go voting' and 'Come along for voting' to a boppy disco beat.

While the junta relentlessly focused on the poll, thousands of survivors of the cyclone that hammered Myanmar a week ago waited for food, medecine and shelter.

Ten thousand hungry and bedraggled refugees have turned up in Myaung Mya, west of Yangon, and their numbers were swelling by the day despite a lack of food and shelter, an aid volunteer said yesterday.

The government has provided no help and the town cannot cope, residents say. "We have 900 people here but we only have 300 lunch boxes. We gave it to the women and children first. The men still have not had any food," the aid volunteer told Reuters. Protesters in Japan, Malaysia and Thailand denounced the junta for holding the referendum in disregard for the suffering of what the United Nations has estimated to be 1.5 million "severely affected" cyclone survivors.

"People are dying and they still want to go on with this artificial democracy," said Than Tun Aung, a refugee who led the protest in Kuala Lumpur.

Even before Cyclone Nargis hit on the night of May 2, groups opposed to military rule, and foreign governments led by the United States, had denounced the vote as an attempt by the military to legitimise its 46-year grip on power.

The government's feeble response to the disaster has only fed cynicism about the junta's determination to proceed with their "roadmap to democracy" leading to multi-party elections in 2010.

The United Nations appealed for $187 million in aid, even though it is still not confident the food, water and tents flown in will make it to those most in need because of the junta's reluctance to admit international relief workers.

Health experts warned that a 'second disaster' loomed from diseases such as diarrhoea and malaria, even if survivors do manage to find food and shelter.

"This is the second disaster," Greg Beck, Southeast Asia programme director for the International Rescue Committee, told Reuters.

"First was the cyclone and the surge of water, the second will come if there is no access to food, water and shelter. They will start dying," he said.

Official Myanmar media yesterday revised the death toll to 23,335 people dead and 37,019 missing.

The generals approved one US aid flight, due to arrive as soon as tomorrow carrying water purification systems and supplies to ward off waterborne diseases, US officials said.

The US Navy is sending four ships on exercises in Thailand towards Myanmar. France said it was sending a naval ship carrying heavy-lift helicopters and 1,500 tonnes of aid, which would arrive by mid-week.

The Americans say they are preparing the same kind of assistance they provided after the 2004 Asian tsunami and the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. But the air bridge the US military set up during the tsunami is unlikely to be replicated.

Myanmar has long been suspicious of the outside world, which the junta fears could bring in destabilising ideas and values, such as Western concepts of democracy and human rights.

The junta has brutally suppressed any sign of dissent. At least 31 people were killed when troops crushed monk-led pro-democracy protests last September.

While impervious to Western economic sanctions, the generals have avoided total isolation by using Myanmar's vast natural gas reserves to befriend energy-hungry China and India.

Myanmar's top General Than Shwe made his first public appearance since the cyclone, casting his ballot in the new capital of Nyapyidaw. Voting in cyclone-devastated areas, including Yangon, has been postponed for two weeks. State-run TV warned of "foreign interference" in a broadcast message urging people to vote yes for the constitution.

Most people were expected to do just that. Of the 20 people Reuters interviewed near polling stations in Hlegu, only two admitted to voting no. Even then it was in a whisper and with a nervous glance over the shoulder first.

Factbox on Myanmar

Myanmar's junta went ahead with voting yesterday for an army-drafted constitution even as the government and international agencies struggled to get aid to an estimated 1.5 million people in need after cyclone Nargis struck a week ago.

The referendum is being held in all but the worst-affected parts of the southeast Asian country. The plebiscite would be held in the Irrawaddy delta and the biggest city of Yangon on May 24, the government said.

Here are some facts on the vote and proposed constitution, which would be the third since the former Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948.

• The constitution is a key step in a seven-point 'road map to democracy' announced by the junta in 2003. The roadmap is meant to culminate in multi-party elections in 2010 that will end nearly five decades of military rule in Myanmar.

• The 200-page constitution and commentary makes the army commander-in-chief the country's most powerful figure, able to appoint key ministers and take power 'in times of emergency'. It gives the military a quarter of the 440 seats in parliament and a veto over legislators.

• It bans Myanmar nationals with foreign spouses or children from political office - a clause said to prevent the election of democracy icon and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) Aung San Suu Kyi. Her husband, now deceased but with whom she has two sons, was British.

• The constitution was drafted by a 54-member commission of mostly military officers and civil servants hand-picked by the junta last October. It has been widely derided by the opposition and Western governments as a blueprint for the generals to cement their grip on power.

• The NLD, whose 1990 election victory was ignored by the junta, have called for a 'no' vote on the charter, as have other dissidents. The NLD sporadically boycotted the laborious 14 years of talks at a National Convention that preceded its drafting, calling the process undemocratic.

• No independent monitors will be present during the vote and junta critic US President George Bush said earlier this month that it would not be "free, fair or credible". Some observers suggest visa delays currently stopping foreign aid workers from entering the cyclone-ravaged country relate to official reluctance to them seeing yesterday's vote.

• Myanmar has been without a constitution since 1989. Its first, written in 1947, was discarded when General Ne Win seized power in a 1962 coup. A 1974 constitution allowing only one legal political party was abolished in 1988 by the generals who succeeded Ne Win.