Millions vote in Myanmar’s first election in 20 years

YANGON - Myanmar’s military-ruled population started voting Sunday in the country’s first election in 20 years, designed to introduce “discipline-flourishing democracy”.

An estimated 29 million people were eligible to vote in Sunday’s polls, the first since May 27, 1990.

This year’s election has raised few expectations for real democracy in Myanmar, but some are hoping it is a small step towards change in a country which has been under military dictatorships since 1962.

“This election is a good start for the country,” said Yaron Mayer, Israeli Ambassador to Myanmar. “After the election, Myanmar may change gradually.”

Mayer was one of a score of diplomats invited to view voting at selected polling stations in Yangon and several other locations. Nationwide there are 40,000 polling booths.

The junta has refused to allow international monitors of the voting, other than a token tour of selected stations by Yangon-based diplomats and journalists.

Several ambassadors refused to join the “voting tour”, including those representing the European Union, Britain, the US, Australia and representatives of the UN.

Myanmar’s polls have been widely criticized by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and western democracies for not being free, fair and inclusive.

The junta refused to release opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest for the polls, and rigged election laws to exclude her National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party from joining the race, detracting from its credibility, observers have complained.

Suu Kyi, whose current detention period is due to expire Nov 13, has spent 15 of the past 20 years under house arrest. Her NLD party won the 1990 polls by a landslide, but have been blocked from power by the military for the past two decades.

The NLD has urged their followers not to vote. The no-vote campaign has divided the po-democracy forces.

“I won’t cast a vote on Sunday because there is no NLD participation in the elections,” said one 35-year-old woman. Many NLD supporters, however, chose to exercise their voting rights.

“I will cast a vote for candidates who can help change the laws in the future Myanmar,” said a 50-year-old voter, who declined to give his name. “I will… support parties that strengthen democracy,” he said.

Current military supremo Senior General Than Shwe has vowed the polls will usher in a “discipline-flourishing democracy.”

Asked what the term meant, one Burmese voter said, “It means people can get electricity, water and freedom of talk.”

Myanmar, which is under economic sanctions by most western democracies, is one of the poorest countries in Asia, with one-third of the estimated 50.5 million people living under the poverty line.

The military has stage-managed the run-up to the election in such a way as to assure the victory of its own proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and other establishment-friendly parties such as the National Unity Party (NUP).

The USDP and NUP account for almost two-thirds of the 3,071 candidates contesting the polls, making it mathematically impossible for the pro-democracy parties to win a majority.

The National Democratic Force (NDF), a break away from Suu Kyi’s NLD party, could afford to field only 160 candidates, the largest number for the pro-democracy groups.

There may be a few surprises. For instance, in the Shan State in north-eastern Myanmar, many voters told DPA, that they had voted for the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party, which has fielded candidates nationwide.

Altogether 37 parties and 82 independents are contesting the race for 1,159 seats in three houses of parliament: upper, lower and regions/states.