PATHEIN: Myanmar’s junta on Saturday held a vote on a new constitution, ignoring pleas to focus on delivering urgently needed food supplies to 1.5 million cyclone victims facing disease and hunger.

The referendum being held in all but the most devastated parts of the country is the first balloting to take place in Myanmar since the disallowed elections in 1990, in which democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi secured a landslide victory.

Voting was postponed by two weeks in the former capital of Yangon, as well as most of the Irrawaddy delta where Cyclone Nargis struck last week, leaving 65,000 dead or missing according to the junta’s count. The junta has also refused to allow in foreign aid workers to direct the relief effort, drawing condemnation from the UN and world leaders who urged the ruling generals to open their doors.

Junta leader, Than Shwe, ignored calls to delay the referendum and allow in foreign experts, despite warnings that without international aid, people who survived the storm’s onslaught in the delta could face a new tragedy as disease and hunger stalk the region.