Mizzima News
11 June 2008 - The National League for Democracy (NLD) issued a statement today which said the new constitution promulgated and enacted by the military regime is 'legally void' due to the unlawful activities committed.
This latest statement issued by NLD is its first position paper on the controversial legality of the constitution presented to the people at home and abroad and also the debut for further actions that will be taken by the party, NLD said yesterday.
"The special statement is the first of our actions that will be taken later. It is the presentation of our position to the people in Burma and also to the international community including the UN which observed the referendum to see whether it was free and fair or not. This is the first step of our party in taking legal actions against the constitution which cannot be accepted as it is unlawful even in accordance with the law of land", Thein Nyunt, spokesman on constitutional law affairs, told Mizzima.
Almost two weeks after the junta announced that the constitution has been enacted and promulgated by over 92 per cent of YES votes polled in the referendum; the special announcement issued by NLD says the result of referendum which was held on May 10 and 24 is unlawful.
According to the reports sent by the divisional, township and ward level party offices, and other evidences, "the regime blatantly violated the 'secret vote', the backbone of the referendum law", the NLD alleged.
"The authorities exercised coercion, intimidation, cheating, misled and put undue influence in the referendum by violating the National Referendum Law and Rules that were enacted by it to get 'YES' votes. There was blatant violations of the 'secret vote system', the backbone of the referendum law and rules", the special statement said.
Similarly the party called the regime for admitting appeal case against the continued detention of party General Secretary Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
"The continuation of the detention of our party GS Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is unlawful. We are ready to present full legal grounds against the detention. If they think the case holds water, the SPDC (regime) should admit our appeal case challenging the detention order in a trial court. We present it on full legal grounds", Nyan Win, party spokesman said.
The regime did not respond to similar attempts for an appeal against the detention order so the party issued a statement in advance, he added.
The Burmese democracy icon, who will turn 63 on the 19th of June, has spent almost 13 years in detention in the last 19 years. The regime extended her detention order for another one year on 27th May and she is still under house arrest.
The criticism of the UN, US and EU reemerged after a period of silence on the Burma issue since Cyclone Nargis struck Burma on May 2 and 3.
The US administration supported the report of the UN Special rapporteur on Human Rights which said in its conclusion that the referendum held by the regime is far from credible.
The first report of the new UN special rapporteur of human rights on Burma which was prepared by Tomás Ojea Quintana and published last week says, "the referendum lacks credibility, wide acceptability and is ambiguous".
The US government spokesman Sean McCormack said, "The US government urges the junta to release all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and engage in dialogue with democracy leaders and ethnic leaders which will pave way for transition to democracy".
The special envoy to Burma appointed by EU Piero Fassino said, "We cannot forget the political crisis in Burma".
The US and EU governments supported the pro-democracy struggle in Burma and have imposed economic sanctions against Burma for violation of human rights in the country for a long time.
Irregularities found in polling that NLD pointed out
- The authorities let all the different levels of their administrative units and government backed organizations free campaign for YES votes, but the party workers who were campaigning for NO votes were arrested, interrogated, their campaign materials seized and intimidated under Law 5/96 and National Referendum Law.
- The absentee votes (votes in advance) were distributed to all polling stations in advance in quota and managed to get the YES votes in accordance with the pre-set quotas.
- The authorities forcibly collected these absentee votes from government employees, workers, cyclone victims and local people by violating their National Referendum Law. The law stipulates that such votes can be collected in advance if and only if the voters are out of station on the polling date, sick and aged.
- The authorities intimidated the voters by saying that they will be sentenced to three years' in prison with Kyat 100,000 as fine, fired from their jobs, rusticated from schools, affecting their businesses if they vote NO and jeopardizing the secret ballot system by exposing those who vote NO in one way or another in polling stations.
- The police in uniform, the authorities, and the persons of government-backed organizations were present in and around the polling stations.
- The police allowed the voters who would vote YES only in the polling station and forcibly expelled those who would vote NO.
- The voters had to cast the ballot papers which have already been ticked YES by the poll station officials.
- Only a member of each household could come and poll by representing all remaining family members.
- The eligible voters were grouped in designated numbers and the pro-government representative of each group cast all votes by representing other voters in this group.
- The polling station officials cast YES votes representing the voters who didn't turn up on the poll date by taking their names from the poll register.
- The referendum commission members cast extra YES votes.
- The polling stations closed before 4 p.m. in violation of the referendum law.
- Independent observation was not allowed in vote counting at all levels of referendum commissions.
- Burning and destroying the NO votes.
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