US electoral watchdog lambastes Burma’s planned elections

Monday, 02 August 2010 17:06 Mizzima News

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – A high-profile American organization involved in the promotion of democratic principles around the world has concluded that Burma’s 2010 general election, as presently structured, significantly fails to meet criteria affording international legitimacy.

The Washington-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) on Sunday released the findings of its research in “Burma’s 2010 Electoral Framework: Fundamentally Undemocratic.”

Rehashing long-standing criticisms of the electoral process and the constitution upon which polling is based, NDI concluded Burma’s 2010 election, the first in some 20 years, “is clearly designed to guarantee a pre-determined outcome and, therefore, does not meet even the very minimum of international standards.”

Specifically, the process is said to lack a guarantee of a government based on the will of the people, basic human rights, freedom to stand for election and an impartial election administration.

Referring to the impact a post-election government would have on ethnic populations, NDI determines that newly formed government bodies at the local level “could be a vehicle for greater participation by ethnic groups in local governance if the new bodies reflected a genuine devolution of power to minority groups, but there is little evidence to suggest that that will be the case.”

Of the composition of the regime’s electoral commission, the U.S. organization criticizes the present commission as lacking independence as well as the process for failing to require that that commission act both impartially and transparently.

“In sum, there is no reason to believe that the elections as currently planned will comport with international standards. Nor are they likely to lead to greater openness. Nothing in the behavior of the regime over the past 20 years has signaled anything other than a commitment to hold power at any cost,” warns the report.

NDI has observed over 150 elections across the globe over the course of the last 25 years. However, Burma remains outside the organization’s physical purview.

“Given the circumstances,” state the report’s authors, “even if Burma’s law permitted international observers, NDI would not deploy them. The constitution effectively locks in the military as rulers of the country in perpetuity.”

As with several other American organizations involved in the promotion of democratic principles and benefiting from government funding, NDI has come under fire for allegedly promoting and pursuing the foreign policy interests of Washington behind a veil of championing democratic principles.

Ian Traynor of The Guardian, investigating the role and impact of NDI and similar organizations in the aftermath of the Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2005, surmised, “engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people’s elections.”