Constitution vote: junta threat to livelihoods

Burmese civil servants are being threatened with the sack and farmers told they will lose their land if they vote against the regime's draft constitution in the May 10 referendum, according to the country's leading opposition party, the National League for Democracy, writes Edward Loxton for The First Post.

The country's academic community is also not spared in an increasingly aggressive regime campaign to ensure it wins a referendum majority for its proposed constitution, which ensures a decisive role for the military in Burma's political future. High school and university teachers and professors face dismissal and students risk expulsion if they are found to vote no in the referendum.

The referendum will be supervised by government-appointed officials, who will have complete control over the ballot boxes and the ability to check the identity of voters. Civil servants and teaching staff are being encouraged to vote ahead of May 10 in the presence of senior military officers.

The NLD - whose leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest - is urging the electorate to reject the draft constitution in the referendum. Two other opposition movements, the 88 Students Generation and the All Burma Alliance of Monks, have called for a boycott, despite a regime warning that any attempt to interfere with the referendum will be severely punished.

The proposed constitution provides for a general election in 2010, but guarantees an executive role for the military in any future parliament and government.