Young voters set to make ill-informed choices

Saturday, 16 October 2010 01:27 Mizzima News

Rangoon (Mizzima) – Minimal canvassing and leafleting by political parties, as well as a lack of media coverage on election issues have made it difficult for young voters to make decisions on the vote.

“I don’t know who to vote for. I don’t know any of the candidates,” Myint Aung (not his real name), a third-year student at the Rangoon Institute of Economics, told Mizzima. “Some people told me that parties are leafleting at people’s doorsteps, but we haven’t had any leaflets at my house.”

A number of people in his household were registered to vote, including his parents and elder sisters, but were confused by the number of parties and candidates. “We do not know who is from which party” he said.

Many university students were already involuntarily listed as members of the USDP long before this election was called, but Myint Aung’s name had also been listed in the electoral roll, so he is required to cast his vote at a polling booth on November 7.

“I’ll vote for anyone other than the USDP. I’ll tick everyone on the ballot paper first,” he said. “But my older sister said that she would vote for the NDF.”

His parents, who run a retail shop in his ward, would not be voting at polling booth on election day, he said. According to Myint Aung, his parents, who run a local retail shop in his ward, “don’t really care who rules the country, as long as they can go about their business”.

However, he said: “I want a new government that can provide us with a better education. Most students and young people don’t have knowledge of the new political system, let alone all the parties, candidates and policies being discussed.”

“It’s making many young people even more disinterested,” he said.

Aye Aye, a young female student from the Institute of Foreign Languages, said she intended to vote for the Democratic Party (Myanmar) on November 7. “I received fliers with a fighting peacock logo on them,” she said.

While the meaning of logo was easily recognised by young voters as a symbol of democracy, many were still unaware of what the party actually stood for, she said.

Aye Aye said: “I didn’t watch their election campaign speech telecast … but I will vote for them anyway” because of their logo. She added, “Many people said that the votes of people who do not turn up to vote on election day, will become automatic votes for the USDP.”

However, “I intend to cast my vote,” she said.

She expected the new elected government would give more individual freedoms and civil rights, and would improve roads, beautify the city and look after the environment more.

However, a 22-year-old retail assistant from an upmarket department store said that she would abstain from voting on election day as her name had been omitted from the electoral roll in her ward.

“I moved here recently … I didn’t go and see the electoral roll when it was issued … I found out later my name was not included in the roll,” she said.

Her parents were living in the countryside while she attended school and boarded at a girls’ hostel in the city. Her local ward authority in Rangoon told her she would have to check her name on the roll at her previous address, she said.

“I’d like to vote here, as my village is very far away. But I have to travel all that way just to check if my name is on the roll,” she said. “I’m not going to vote. It’s too much trouble to work out where to vote.”

Voters who are living away from their registered address on polling day are required to submit a special application to the junta’s electoral watchdog, the Union Election Commission.

“I’m not free to travel and I don’t have enough money to pay to lodge the application form. So I won’t vote”, she said. “I don’t care who rules the country. But I will be happy if they can deal with the poverty.”

The current Burmese government gives no official estimates about the number of people living below the poverty line in Burma, but the country has been designated a least-developed country by the United Nations for many years and is believed to have large number of people living in extreme poverty.

The World Bank says at least half of Burma’s population lives in extreme poverty, which it classifies as daily income of around US$1.25.

While most students and young voters may turn up on election day, many have little interest in candidates and political parties.