Rangoon district to file case against party fund-raisers

Friday, 09 July 2010 00:08 Myint Maung

New Delhi (Mizzima) – Rangoon East District municipal committee is to file cases against 10 central committee members from two political parties for collecting party funds to contest in the upcoming general elections, a party members said.

Yesterday, the district committee summoned to its offices in South Okkalapa Township tomorrow Khin Maung Win and four others, central committee members of the 88-Generation Students and Youths (Union of Myanmar), and, Aung Min Thu and four others from the Union of Myanmar Federation of National Politics (UMFNP).

“They [the committee] said … we would be prosecuted under the Municipal Act in a letter signed by the East District Municipal Committee administrator,” UMFNP party central committee member Aung Min Thu told Mizzima.

The letter signed by municipal administrator says, “Aung Min Thu, who lives in North Okkalapa Township ‘L’ Ward was found collecting funds in the Yadana Theingi market without the permission of this committee. Thus he will be prosecuted under the Municipal Act.”

Similarly UMFNP chairman Aye Lwin confirmed that the district body planned to prosecute 10 central committee members from the two parties under the Municipal Act, Law No. 33/1999.

Mizzima contacted the East District municipal office for further details in the case but the authorities concerned declined to answer.

Aung Zaw Oo, chief fund-raiser for the parties said that they had collected funds only after providing local Special Branch (SB) police with a complete list of persons in their teams and where they would be operating. The fund-raiser added that they usually give receipts to donors.

Yadana Theingi market officials had prohibited 10 party leaders on July 1 from fund-raising at the market, warning them of possible prosecution under the Municipal Law.

But the party leaders insisted that their fund-raising activities were permissible under provisions of the 2010 electoral law and asked municipal officials which law took precedence, municipal or electoral laws. They proceeded to raise funds at the market until municipal and local officials recorder took down their names and addresses after they had taken photos during their activities.

The Political Parties Registration Law, Chapter 4, section 15(a), allows for party funds to be collected and stipulates how they should be maintained in fund accounts.

“Though the election law permits collection of funds in the market, parties must abide also by the municipal law. Sometimes we can’t just focus a single law in Burma as every law has some problems,” Lawyer Thein Nyunt in Rangoon told Mizzima. “If a violation occurs within a municipality, we have to apply municipal law, but the Municipal Law is also a statute, like the Political Parties Registration law, and in this case, these laws are in conflict.”