Myanmar parties fear Kayah vote rigging
Political parties say they are deeply concerned about vote rigging through advance votes and other methods in Kayah State as there are few monitoring officers.
“Most of election monitors are ethnic Kayah. They may find it difficult to do their jobs as they’re hardly well informed about state affairs. As far as I know, only one such monitor visited Shadaw. He stayed for 15 minutes. Some EU monitors came. That’s all,” said Shadaw National League for Democracy candidate Aung Kyaw Soe.
Kayah State is coming under scrutiny as union ministers and deputy ministers will compete in Shadaw, Bawlakhe and Hpasawng townships.
Candidate Nyunt Shwe for the Kayah National Race Democracy Party said: “A female monitor from an organisation named ‘Dhana Shaysaung’ visited twice to gather information. Most of the monitors say it’s too far to visit Bawlakhe from Loikaw. They never keep in touch with reporters. They should liaise with each other. There are many reporters here. Some monitors don’t want to be publicly known. Bawlakhe has just over 6,000 registered voters.”
President’s Office minister Aung Min will compete in Shadaw which has just over 4,000 voters with many villages hard to reach. Many villages do not speak Burmese and there are many army bases in the township.
The state will have 229 polling stations, as well as 25 in army bases, and election-monitoring organisations such as Dhana Shaysaung, Kayan Women’s Association, Kayah Youth Network, Level Up and People’s Alliance for Credible Election.