Referendum in Myanmar likely to solidify junta's power

State TV broadcast a special video showing two women singing a pop-style song whose lyrics translated to: "Let's go to cast vote.... with sincere thoughts for happy days ... Let's go to cast vote."

But in a country where the last election was held 18 years ago, many people had no idea how to vote.

Some asked each other or officials, "Where do I go?" or "What do I do?" as they walked into curtained booths to cast their ballots.

The referendum seeks public approval of a new constitution, which the generals say will be followed in 2010 by a general election. Both votes are elements of what the junta calls its "roadmap to democracy."

But the proposed constitution guarantees 25 percent of parliamentary seats to the military and allows the president to hand over all power to the military in a state of emergency -elements critics say defy the junta's professed commitment to democracy.

It would also bar Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained leader of the country's pro-democracy movement, from public office. The military refused to honor the results of the 1990 general election won by her National League for Democracy party.

Some 27 million of the country's 57 million people were eligible to vote, although balloting was delayed for two weeks in the areas hardest hit by the May 3 cyclone. State media say 23,335 people died and 37,019 are missing from Cyclone Nargis, and international aid organizations say the death toll could climb to more than 100,000.

Anti-government groups and human rights organizations, which have criticized the charter as designed to perpetuate military rule, have bitterly accused the government of neglecting cyclone victims to advance its political agenda.

The fear of the military, which has ruled since 1962, is so great that few people among those who voted were expected to have marked "X" -which stands for "No" to the constitution -on their ballot, making the outcome a foregone conclusion.