The local authorities of the Burmese junta resorted to threats and intimidation of voters from some townships in northwest Burma during the referendum to approve the draft constitution held in Burma on May 10, according to Chin Human Rights Organization.
 
A report released by CHRO on May 15 accused the local authorities of manipulating the votes by threatening and intimidating the people in different ways during the referendum.
 
"The people were naturally intimidated when they had to vote right in front of the officials. Many people might have actually voted differently if it was not under duress, "the CHRO quoted an observer of the poll process in Chin state as saying.
 
CHRO further said, based on reliable reports from Chin state and Sagaing division, that all government employees were forced to vote in advance and were threatened with dismissal from their jobs and deletion from family registration lists if they marked "X" on the ballots.
 
The CHRO added, that the government allowed members of its sponsored organization USDA to campaign for Vote 'Yes' in their areas.
 
Contrarily, the regime restricted anti-constitution activities or the Vote 'No' campaign in Burma.
 
"These reports only show how flawed the whole voting process was and how far the SPDC is willing to go to skew and manipulate the results in its favour," said Salai Bawi Lian Mang, Executive Director of the Chin Human Rights Organization.
 
Despite such conditions, poll results from Kalay town in Sagain division and four townships in northern Chin state had shown that a majority of voters from the townships from northwestern Burma overwhelmingly rejected the regime's new constitution.
 
However, today the regime announced in its state-owned TV that 92.4 percent of the 22 million eligible voters approved the draft constitution in the referendum poll on May 10.
 
Despite the international community and Burmese pro-democracy groups inside and outside the country urging the regime to postpone the referendum given the country was lashed by Cyclone Nargis, the regime held the nationwide referendum on May 10 but excluded the affected areas.
 
The deadly cyclone killed around 100,000 people and left over a million homeless.
 
The 1990 election winning party the National League for Democracy said on May 10 that the referendum is unfair as the authorities forced the voters to cast the 'yes' vote in polling stations in many towns in Burma.
 
The NLD yesterday also blamed the military government for holding the referendum in the cyclone affected areas on May 24.