A week prior to the referendum, the \"NK Alyance\" oil company broadcasted advertisement that \"people endorse President\". During the entire week, KOORT TV broadcasted an advertisement, where on vote bulletins \"no\" answers were crossed out, implying to support proposed issues. Two weeks ahead of referendum day, the state machinery had been working at the breaking point. In every department under state guidance, as it were during Soviet times, meetings with personnel were held. Senior state managers had appealed to actively take part in referendum. Many administrative employees were involved in the process of campaigning, even though it was not in their job descriptions. Bonuses of 500-10000 Soms were promised to state employees if their electoral area would reach a turnout of over 50%. This incentive had especially motivated educators and members of election committees, who have the lowest salaries in the state. They have been going over electorate begging to vote on referendum day. It seems that they have over-fulfilled their jobs. According to the Central Election Committee, there was a 86.6% turnout of 2.46 million voters. The opposition MP Omurbek Tekebayev, leader of the Public Headquarters for Monitoring the Referendum (PHMR), declared in a report that hundreds of Kyrgyzstanis could not physically vote, since they have been working during elections on bazaars in the cities of Bishkek, Osh and Jalal-Abad. He also referred to the statement of Akaev that nearly 500,000 Kyrgyzstani are in Russia. However, only 3,000 of them voted. In other words, over 20% of electorate was unable to vote. Thus the statement of 86% turnout quota is impossible. Prior to referendum day, the M-Vector research and consulting agency conducted express research between Bishkek and Osh city dwellers, targeted to reveal what people know about the changes to the Constitution. It appeared that 64% of respondents had absolutely no idea about amendments to the Constitution submitted to voting; most of those who know about changes were intended to vote in favor. According to another M-Vector research, more than half of respondents (63%) claimed that they would take part in voting on February 2003. Almost a third of respondents stated that they were against the conduct of a referendum, claiming they did not believe there would be positive changes in their lives. Moreover, citizens thought that expenses to conduct referendum were unjustified and were not inclined to believe the results of the public plebiscite. According to Central Election Committee, the amendments secured the support of over three-quarter of the voters. To the second ballot question, a similar majority supported the endorsement of Akayev\'s administration. However, the Washington-based National Democratic Institute declared that \"the nature of the constitutional changes put to a referendum vote on February 2 will not be conducive to democratic reforms in Kyrgyzstan. Just as important, the procedures surrounding the constitutional revisions, including those related to the development of amendments as well as those related to the referendum voting, undermine confidence that the referendum process was democratic.\" In turn, the Assembly of Kyrgyzstan\'s People and 31 Kyrgyz NGOs condemned NDI of a biased assessment of the referendum. Their statement mentions that the population had actively participated in public voting and the statement by NDI was \"directed to fracture civic society and setting a double standard policy\". The authors of the statement condemned NDI for \"inappropriate involvement in the election process via financing the observers of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society\". The PHMR and \"Ar-namys\" opposition parties consider the referendum illegal and presented information about falsification of the results. During Election Day observers had caught a student with 50 ballots, where the \"no\" answers already had been crossed out. Student said that the department faculty had given it to him; 40 students had also received analogous bulletins. It is interesting that during Presidential Elections 2000 the same case was registered in this same polling station, Jalal-Abad State University. Students have no freedom to choose and reject rektorat offerings, since most of them have tuition debts and fear being dismissed from the University for it. Also, PHMR presented a videotape, where Bakytbek Chordoev, state employee, articulates that their group had visited and voted in three polling stations. They were promised to have some meal and drink for this job.