Saturday, November 7, 2015

Shan Herald Agency for News

Shan Herald Agency for News

SNDP and SNLD candidates: advanced voting not transparent

Posted: 07 Nov 2015 06:51 AM PST

On the day before Burma's November 8 election, candidates from two major Shan parties shared concerns with SHAN about the reliability of the country's advanced voting process.


Sai Mon Lern, who is competing on behalf of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) for a State Assembly seat in Mong Nai Township, said that he has doubts about the validity of the electoral process.

"What they [the Election Commission] are doing is not transparent," he said. "We requested that they use glue to stick the ballot bags closed in order to keep the ballots safe, but we were denied that by the Election Commission."

He said that electoral officials told him this practice could damage the marked ballots.

Sai Mon Lern's concerns also extend to the ballot boxes, where completed votes are submitted; he alleged that no one knows where the advanced voters' ballots are kept after they have been collected.  
Problems have also been reported in Mong Yang Township within Kengtung District, in eastern Shan State.

"There are a lot of tokens left, so I'm worried that anyone can take them and cast a vote," said Sai Laung, a candidate from the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP) in Mong Yang Township, referring to the registration papers given to eligible voters.

He said that in order to avoid fraud, SNDP had requested that voters bring their national ID cards along with the token when they cast their ballots. But, he alleged that election officials are no longer requiring additional ID, and that the token can serve as sufficient identification to vote.

Both Sai Mon Lern (SNLD) and Sai Laung (SNDP) claimed that the names of deceased people have reportedly been found on voting lists, but often the people currently living in the location in question are not included. There are a lot of mistakes, they said, involving names, parents' names, ages and ID numbers, which are all required for voter registration in Burma.

According to a report on Tai Freedom's Shan Language website on Saturday, in Mongpeng Township within Kengtung District, the names of the deceased allegedly surfaced as participants during the advanced voting process.


"I don't think it is a free and fair election," Sai Mon Lern said.

By SAI AW / Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN)

Cancellations leave 100,000 unable to vote in central Shan State

Posted: 07 Nov 2015 04:12 AM PST

Due to polling cancellations in two townships, over 100,000 central Shan State citizens will not be able to cast votes on November 8, local election officials confirmed on Friday.


Officials from Township Election Commissions in Mong Hsu and Kesi corroborated to SHAN the registration of 50,365 and 51,362 eligible voters in the two townships, respectively.

Internally displaced villagers in Wan Saw, Mong Hsu Township, where voting has been cancelled in Burma's November 8 election (S.H.A.N.)
The Union Election Commission announced on October 27 that voting had been cancelled in the whole of the two townships, both located in Loilem District. The annulment was allegedly due to conditions created by active conflict between the Burma Army and the Shan State Progressive Party/Shan State Army-North (SSPP/SSA-N), affecting 22 villages and causing the displacement of 6,000 civilians in the area.  

Nang Ying, 30, delivered voter education courses in her native Mong Hsu. On behalf of locals in the area, she expressed frustration with the UEC's decision.

"They know all about how to vote," she said of the villagers who attended her trainings.

"They are unsatisfied because they expected to be able to vote and now they are not able to. They lost that right."

It was reported that the UEC's decision came just over a week after the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP) requested the cancellation on October 19, due to fighting.

The area is perceived as being more supportive of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), who opposed the closure of polls and requested a formal evaluation of whether this action was necessary.  

Nang Ying said that locals wanted both an end to recent military offensives and a chance to participate in the country's election.

 "Firstly, we want the fighting to end," Nang Ying said. "And we want to be able to vote like other townships."

In total, voting has now been cancelled in areas within 17 townships in Shan State, including 42 village tracts in Hopang Township, in the Wa Self-Administered Division, and eight village tracts in Tang Yan Township in northern Shan State.

A local source who collected demographic data for Burma's 2014 census estimated on Friday that the move in Tang Yan would affect 10,000 voters. At the time of reporting, SHAN was not able to confirm the number of voters left out in Hopang.

By SIMMA FRANCIS / Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N)

Reporting by SAI YIPHONG / Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N) 

GENUINE PEACE: The Wish of Ethnic Nationalities from November Elections Outcome

Posted: 06 Nov 2015 10:55 PM PST

On the eve of the 8 November election, roughly about four to six scenario focus has been making the rounds.

On 6 November, Myanmar Now and BBC publicized a series of post-election scenarios. The former  has a likely outcome of six, while the latter has four scenarios.

The combined gist of it could be listed as below:

·         The NLD needs to win two-thirds of all the contested seats and will only be achievable if it wins large numbers of seats outside the areas dominated by the ethnic Bamar, the dominant group in Burma.

·         If the NLD fails to win the required two-thirds of the contested seats, they will have to reach out to "friendly" ethnic parties. This should be relatively straightforward, though relations have been strained by the NLD's decision to run candidates in ethnic minority areas.

·         Aung San Suu Kyi's party win the most seats, but a coalition of the USDP, some ethnic parties and the 25% of the army enables the military candidate to take the presidency.

·         USDP winning the most seats is an option so unlikely that most would immediately assume that the results had been rigged. Ms Suu Kyi's party would almost certainly walk out of parliament.

·         The worst case scenarios will be that the NLD performs poorly amid evidence of widespread intimidation, interference with the voting process and voter fraud. International election observers declare the election results non-credible.

·         Suu Kyi calls on voters and the international community to condemn the results and to mount pressure on the government. She seeks political avenues to challenge the results while urging her supporters to remain calm.

·         Or alternatively, an overwhelming victory by the NLD prompts a backlash by reactionary forces, including military hardliners, the Buddhist nationalist Ma Ba Tha movement and USDP supporters. The groups start to foment instability across the country.

·         In both scenarios, with the increased likelihood of civil disobedience and wide-scale civil revolt, the military declares a state of emergency under the guise of securing stability. It uses its power to suspend the Constitution indefinitely and establishes a military administration. It says it will return governance to quasi-civilian rule only when it can assure the country's stability. (Sources: Myanmar Now & BBC , 6 November)

 What the non-Bamar ethnic nationalities want

While the most Burmese are eyeing for more individual freedom and democracy to replace the quasi-civilian regime of Thein Sein, dominated by the military, the non-Bamar ethnic nationalities and minorities are burdened with an extra duty to strive for the rights of self-determination and wrestle back their rightful, justified political power and resources sharing, couple with maintaining their ethnic identities, the right to live as decent human beings free from oppression and military occupation.

As all know, the Bamar-dominated Burma Army or Tatmadaw has been occupying and oppressing the ethnic nationalities, under the guise of national unity and protecting the country's sovereignty,  for as long as we could remember and there is really no hint that this will be coming to an end soon.

The recent ongoing partial-ceasefire, dubbed nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) is a fraud and this is not going to lead to any sort of peaceful reconciliation, without genuine political will and forsaking ethnocentrism from the part of the Burmese center.

The fact that out of 100,000 ethnic armed troopers, only some 10,000 have signed the partial-ceasefire is the case in point. And even though the present regime has time and again publicized that it will continue to solicit and woo the remaining ethnic armed organizations to participate in its   initiated NCA, its escalation of war on the Shan, Kachin, Palaung and Kokang ethnic forces indicates just the opposite of its real intention.

We also don't need to emphasize much on decades long human rights violations in ethnic homelands for there are ample documentations by internationally known rights groups, from extra-judicial killings, rapes, tortures, disappearances without traces to unjustified detentions are widespread, needless to mention about thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons, who are waiting to go home.

But if the present or the new in-coming regime would really like to right this wrong, that has been going on for decades, the best place to start is ending the " institutionalized violence" against the ethnic population and the organizations that represent them.

The immediate pressing need

Thus, the immediate pressing need is to remove the obstacle of waging an institutionalized war on the ethnic nationalities, so as to make a start on basic requirement of a peaceful atmosphere, which have been lacking in the ethnic homelands, embroiled in armed conflict caused by the successive Bamar-dominated governments, Thein Sein regime included.

Thus the election outcome wishes for the ethnic groups would be, without doubt, a durable, long-lasting and implementable nationwide ceasefire, not a fake two-tier war and peace situation, like it is now.

In this respect,  the ethnic groups would heartily welcome any national government formation that could deliver the said conditions.

The reality of the occupation wars occurring in ethnic homelands have its origin in the fact that the Burmese political class, whether it be the military or Burmese opposition groups, refuses to accept  the fact that it is also an equal party with the other non-Bamar ethnic groups and not their overlord, within the Union; and that the country's sovereignty is also a shared one with all ethnic nationalities residing within the Union and not a monopoly sphere of the Bamar only. In fact, the independence achieved from the British in 1947, is also a co-independence shared between the Bamar and non-Bamar ethnic nationalities.

If this doing away with the institutionalized violence or war could be done, then we will all be able to defuse the armed conflicts that have been going on and sit down to actually talk about the equitable power and resources sharing. But first and foremost the war has to be stopped, by all means.

Sai Nyunt Lwin, Secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, rightly said in a recent DVB debate, moderated by Myo Thar Htet, that unilateral ceasefire declaration is the only way out of this deadlock. He must have meant to say that  it is the sole avenue, to overcome the perception of Burmese Army's intention to subjugate the ethnic groups, through suppression and occupation of their homelands. And only after this, a serious negotiation, on rebuilding the shattered confidence and equitable federal union could begin.


For now, the EAOs and the ethnic nationalities could only hope that the next incoming government could deliver real peace and brings the unruly military under its control, if earnest peace and reconciliation process are to begin. 
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