USDP uses coercive canvassing tactics in Mon State

Thursday, 24 June 2010 11:23 Kyaw Kha

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The party created by Burma’s ruling military junta is employing coercive measures to recruit new members while canvassing in Chaungsone Township, Mon State, according to residents.

On an election campaign tour this week, Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) township organiser Myo Min Hlaing’s team ordered village peace and development council chairmen to assemble 50 people from each village to tell them to vote for the USDP, led by Prime Minister Thein Sein, a resident said.

The team had started village-to-village canvassing work on Monday but surprisingly they were yet to visit Chaungsone town centre, he said.

“Before coming here, they had already ordered the village heads in advance to assemble 50 people,” a resident of Kataungsein village told Mizzima. “As soon as they arrived they started making speeches about the elections … they took our photographs and pasted them on [voting forms] that had already been filled out.”

The organisers said that only their USDP party would win the elections, he said.

“They told us to vote for the lion [the election logo of the USDP] in case we made a mistake in voting,” the villager said. “‘The lion is the king of forest and no other beasts can win against it,’ they said.”

“So in this election too, the lion will certainly win and they warned us not to have any regrets about voting”, he told Mizzima, in what sounded like a threat against voting for another party.

The party organisers referred their “Lion” party logo in their speeches.

Among the 42 parties that have applied for registration with the Union Election Commission, the USDP intends to contest in all constituencies across the country.

The only group representing ethnic Mon people in Mon State, the All Mon Regions Democratic Party (AMRDP), was as yet unable to start organising and canvassing in the state, party chairman Nai Ngwe Thein told Mizzima.

The AMRDP said that USDP and the National Unity Party were its main rivals in this election. The latter grouping was formed by members that include past members of former dictator Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Programme Party.

“We will rely only on our local people while canvassing,” party spokesman Dr. Min New Soe told Mizzima. “We will present our party policies to our people and we will hear and accept their demands. We will not forcibly organise them.”

The junta first formed the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) as a nationalist social organisation, and from its members then created the USDP.

They used public funds to build roads and clinics so their party had become well known, a USDP leader from Rangoon Division said.

However, it remained unclear whether the USDA would continue as a separate social organisation, he said. Organisers were still awaiting orders from junta leaders in their secluded capital of Naypyidaw.

Junta chief Senior General Than Shwe is one of the patrons of USDA. During the junta’s tri-annual meeting last month, he told all regional military commanders to rally around the USDP and work for the victory of the party in the upcoming polls.