Irrawaddy people agree with poll boycott: NLD

Thursday, 02 September 2010 00:43 Ko Wild

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Many Irrawaddy residents and party members have agreed to boycott Burma’s first elections in 20 years on November 7, according to National League for Democracy party vice-chairman Tin Oo.

His comments came today as he returned from his first trip to Irrawaddy Division since 1989, a year before the NLD won a landslide victory in Burma’s last polls. The NLD was conducting a voter-education campaign in the region this week.

“The people would like to boycott the election. They said they would like to cast their votes for the NLD but as the NLD had decided to boycott the election, so they also should boycott the forthcoming election. They [said they] have no option but to boycott the election”, Tin Oo said.

NLD leaders discussed electoral issues, youth culture and women’s affairs with party members, residents and villagers, he said.

“Our tour was aimed at educating and motivating people to do what they should. We helped them understand the current political conditions and advised that they need to carry out suitable actions peacefully,” he told Mizzima.

Tin Oo, 83, said that although he had not visited his hometown Pathein for a long time, he had no intention of visiting relatives, but that the objective of the tour was to reorganise NLD members and colleagues and talk to local residents.

He and his colleagues saluted the statue of national independence hero General Aung San, the father of detained NLD general secretary Aung San Suu Kyi, near Titekyi Monastery in Pathein, and vowed that they too would continue to fight for freedom.

Also on the roadshow were NLD central executive committee member Hla Pe, party members Win Myint and Kyi Win from Irrawaddy Division, and party women’s and youth leaders. They also visited Kyonpyaw, Pantanaw, Maubin, Bogalay and Dedaye townships.

A legal scholar, Tin Oo entered politics in 1988. In September that year he became the party’s vice-chairman and in December, chairman.

In 1989, he was imprisoned for seven years. Then in 2003 he was arrested again after in the “Depayin Massacre” and was sentenced to nine months in Katha Prison before being put under house arrest in 2004. He was released on February 13 this year.

The NLD have been conducting such roadshows around the country since June, visiting around 200 townships in Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway, Tenasserim, Pegu, and Irrawaddy divisions and Shan, Mon, Kachin and Arakan states.

Registrations for 42 political parties have been approved by the junta’s electoral watchdog, the Union Election Commission, and 32 have submitted lists of members to the commission according to the junta’s electoral laws, state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported on Tuesday. Among the parties, the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and the National Unity Party (NUP) have the maximum numbers of candidates, which junta rules make costly to submit.

The international community including the United Nations has demanded that the election process be credible and inclusive. However, many countries including the United States, Britain, Australia and those of the European Union, have condemned the junta’s apparent stage-management ahead of the polls in favour of parties it supports and the exclusion of opposition leader Suu Kyi and her NLD party from the process as among many of the signs that the elections would be neither free nor fair.