Online opinion poll suggests 80 per cent to say 'No'

By Phanida
Wednesday, 30 April 2008 23:27
Mizzima News

Chiang Mai – Mizzima News conducted an online constitutional referendum opinion poll on its website where 80 per cent of respondents said 'No' to the draft constitution.

About 6,028 respondents gave their opinion on Mizzima's online opinion poll conducted from 27 March to today afternoon of which 5,034 respondents (83.6%) said 'No' and 584 (9.7%) said 'Yes' in favour of the draft constitution.

In the online poll survey a respondent can give his/her poll only once a day if the same computer is used. Most of the respondents are Burmese in exile.

In this 'Your Opinion' page, the respondents can click any tab which they want to poll; (1) I support/object/abstain from the constitution (2) I understand the constitution well/a little/not at all (3) have interest/no interest in the constitution.

According to this survey, about 50 per cent of respondents did not understand the constitution at all and the number of people who understand it are few.

There were 1114 (27.9%) who understand the constitution, 928 (23.2%) who understand it a little bit and 1995 (48.9%) who do not understand it at all.

The most interesting part is the number of those who want to know and who have no interest in the draft constitution is almost equal.

About 1,687 persons (41.3%) said they want to know and 2397 (58.7%) said they have no interest in it.

According to Mizzima website statistics, the number of readers from Singapore, US, Thailand and Malaysia rank first to fourth respectively. The number of readers from Burma rank fifth.

There are discrepancies between online polls and telephonic polls. The telephone polls conducted earlier suggested that many voters are still undecided.

Similarly the opinion poll conducted by Mizzima staff reporters inside Burma suggested that majority of eligible voters are still indecisive.