Profiles of Union Election Commission Members

Shortly after the promulgation of the Union Election Commission Law in March, Burma's junta appointed a
Union Election Commission of 18 members. The commission is led by former major-general Thein Soe, who
has served as a military judge advocate-general and deputy chief justice of the Supreme Court. The Irrawaddy
compiled brief profiles of several of the commission members and will be updating the list as further details
arrive.
No Name Position Profile Photo

1 Thein Soe Chairman A former major-general who

served as a military judge
advocate-general and later as
deputy chief justice of the
Supreme Court. He was also a
member of the commission that
drafted the 2008 Constitution.

2 Win Ko Secretary Joint Secretary of Commission for

Drafting State Constitution and
Director General of the former
multi-party General Election
Commission. He has a master's
degree in law.

3 N Zaw Naw Member A Kachin national and former

district law officer in Myitkyina,
capital of Kachin State. He also
served on the commission that
drafted the 2008 constitution.

4 Khin Maung Nu Member N/A

5 Saw Ba Hlaing Member N/A

6 Dr. Ba Maung Member A former director-general of the

Historical Research Department.

7 Nyunt Tin Member N/A

8 Maung Tha Hla Member N/A

9 Dr. Sai Khan Member N/A

Hlaing
10 Aung Myint Member A former member of the Civil
Service Selection and Training
Board and an ex-director of the
military-owned Myanmar
[Burma] Economic Holdings
Limited. In 1962, he joined the
Burmese Air Force as a lieutenant
rising to the rank of Lt-Colonel.
He also served in the office of the
Judge Advocate General after
gaining his certificate of
advocateship in the late 1970s.

11 Myint Naing Member A former Deputy Attorney

General.

12 Dr. Tin Aung Member A former Supreme Court judge

Aye who also served on the
constitution-drafting
commission. He was earlier a
professor and rector of Rangoon
University.

13 Dr. Myint Kyi Member A former head of the department

of international relations at
Rangoon University. She also
served as chairwoman of the
Myanmar [Burma] Women's
Affairs Federation.

14 Khin Hla Myint Member N/A

15 Tha Oo Member NA

16 Dr. Maung Member A retired professor and former

Htoo rector of Monywa University,
Sagaing Division.

17 Tha Htay Member N/A

18 Win Kyi Member N/A

Source :http://www.irrawaddy.org/election/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=179:profiles-
of-union-election-commission-members&catid=53&Itemid=160
Burma Population Data

Source :http://www.irrawaddy.org/election/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=184:burma-
population-data&catid=48&Itemid=126
A Lack of Independence, Impartiality
The election will definitely be held sometime in 2010, but the jury is still out on how we should look at the
election: as opportunity or as a rigged process.
The Burmese regime has now issued five laws related to the election including Election Commission
regulations and Political Parties Registration laws, which are revisions of the 1990 electoral law. Already,
international bodies and governments around the world have condemned the laws as short of international
standards and lacking in credibility for a free and fair election.

The governments of the United States, Canada, Britain and even Asean governments such as the Philippines
and Indonesia view the laws with deep disappointment, saying the election will not be credible.
Why don't they accept the election laws? First, there's the issue of the independence of the Election
Commission. Each member of the commission was handpicked by the junta.
Many people believe the commission will favor the regime in making its decisions and wielding authority.
The previous election commission which supervised the 1990 election was formed by the former socialist
government before the military coup in 1988. After the military coup, Gen Saw Maung, the coup leader,
appointed election commission members and said the military would not interfere in its work.
The commission was granted the right to draw up the electoral law independently. The commission publicly
issued a draft law and invited political parties and the public to comment. The commission then revised the
draft law and submitted it to the junta which issued it on May 31, 1989, one year before of the date of the
election.
The new election law was drafted by the generals unilaterally without public input. Closely affiliated with the
regime, the Election Commission chairman was a member of the junta's Constitution drafting commission,
and he also served as a military judge advocate general.

Internationally, an election commission is an organization which has various duties including collecting voter
lists, examining candidate applications, announcing the list of candidates, conducting polls, counting and
tabulating votes, with additional functions such as boundary delimitation, voter registration, the registration
of political parties, electoral dispute resolution and civic and voter education.
Moreover, such commissions can regulate the conduct of political parties and candidates during the election
process.
Among the key responsibilities is the registration of political parties. The commission may deny the
registration of a political party, such as the National League for Democracy, if the party includes political
prisoners as members or leaders, such as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Through her lawyers, Suu Kyi recently remarked that the law should not be aimed at one particular person or
organization, a charge alleged by many international groups and governments.
Parties or candidates can also be denied registration if the commission determines that they owe allegiance to
a foreign government, are subjects of a foreign government or who are entitled to enjoy the rights and
privileges of a subject of a foreign government, or a citizen of a foreign country. Again, the commission's
decision is final.
The commission can also deny registration to a party or candidate that obtains and uses directly or indirectly
financial support, land, housing, buildings, vehicles or property from government or religious organizations or
organizations of a foreign country.
Chapter (11) of the electoral laws grants the commission the authority to postpone the election in
constituencies on the ground of natural disaster or security. The commission can also move a polling station to
a safer location.
After the election, the commission is authorized to form a complaint body, which will hear accusations if a
candidate is accused of violating election laws, and then make an appropriate ruling.
Analysts worry that with such wide-ranging authority and discretionary power, the Election Commission could
directly affect the election's outcome in favor of the regime because of the commission members' lack of
independence and impartiality.
Source :http://www.irrawaddy.org/election/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=182:a-lack-of-
independence-impartiality&catid=51:electoral-laws&Itemid=152

Orwell’s Ghost Looms Over the Election

These days one often hears talks of incremental change through the junta’s (kleptocratic) “privatization”,
election for election's sake, and “constitutional military rule.” But they all sound Orwellian to me.
For the past two decades, Burma’s de facto government has been suffering from the terminal crisis of
legitimization, whether it is measured by Burmese traditional discourses of righteous kings or those of the
modern Rousseaurean social contract.
The monks’ revolt in 2007 and the common disdain with which the junta is treated in regional
and global forums speak volume.
If “the genius of democracy is that it allows social conflicts to find open expression, moderates
the intensity of those conflicts, and provides procedures by which to legitimize their public
resolution,” as scholars have expounded, then junta leader Snr-GenThan Shwe’s Constitution
and the “election laws” are irredeemably stupid and harmful to the common good.
How then could this illegitimate ruling clique of Than Shwe, his thuggish character and feudal
Dr Zarni
pretensions get away with threatening to invoke the “law” to, in effect, abolish the popularly
elected political figure of Aung San Suu Kyi, who continues to command both domestic support and
international solidarity? Provided, that is, if Suu Kyi chooses, rightly in my view, not to re-register the party as
required under the new laws which attack its very foundations?
Ordinary Burmese on the street know the bogus nature of the military’s planned constitutional rule. In fact,
these election laws are best understood as the junta’s final battle plan, or operational manual, in its war
against the NLD and other formidable oppositional organizations and leaders such as the Shan NLD and its
jailed leaders.
The craziness of the “election laws” is not so much that they are neither law as we know it or about elections
(not to mention irredeemably anti-democratic and categorically repressive), as that renowned liberals who
should know better, including the secretary-general of the UN and of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (Asean) are, in effect, treating the junta’s new “electoral” politics prima facie.
After their whirlwind visits to the country, these gentlemen came up with memorable sound-bites, including “a
moment of hope and change,” “a new beginning,” “a new landscape,” “emerging humanitarian space,” “the
growth of civil society,” “state building” and, most recently, “privatization.”
These otherwise well-intentioned men are but fools who allow themselves, wittingly or unwittingly, to be used
by the junta as proxy defenders of “Than Shwe Inc.”
” program (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8531397.stm ), saying: “there is a new
beginning [in Burma] after the election,”,an utterance which compelled even the program host to accuse him
of “insulting the Burmese people.”
The regime’s distinguished proxies remind me of an impassioned conversation in George Orwell’s “Burmese
Days,” between the protagonist Mr Flory and Dr Veraswami, the sycophantic Indian doctor suffering from
Anglophilia, the strain that made disease carriers believe Pax Britannica was the best thing that ever
happened to the “Orientals.”
Provoked by his Indian friend’s characterization of his anti-colonialist rants as “seditious,” Flory launches his
tirade against the “white man’s burden” defense of the Empire, the thematic mantra among his Eton-schooled,
Oxbridge-educated fellow colonial administrators in the then British Burma: “I am not seditious. I don’t want
the Burmans to drive us out of this country. God forbid! I’m here to make money, like everyone else. All I
object to is the slimy white man’s burden humbug…. It’s so boring. Even those bloody fools at the [“whites
only”] Club might be better company if we weren’t all of us living a lie the whole time...We Anglo-Indians
could be almost bearable if we’d only admit that we’re thieves and go on thieving without any humbug.”
Fast forward 75 years to today’s military-ruled Burma. Than Shwe’s regime is engaged in a criminal process of
establishing a polity which can only be described as “internal colonialism” and an unmistakable kleptocracy.
And these regime proxies, wittingly or unwittingly, have entered into a repugnantly “Kissingeresque” swap of
cheap access to power for intellectual honesty and personal integrity.
Spin-doctors abound and come in different shapes, skin-colors and backgrounds. Spinning for the junta is a
boutique industry comprising not just bureaucrats, but writers and scholars of international reputation—for
instance, Thant Myint-U, the dynastic historian of feudal Burma and the grandson of the late U Thant,
Burma's former UN Secretary General and the Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.
The New York Times wrote in a March 17 article titled “Change Comes to Myanmar, but only on the Junta’s
Terms:” “There is guarded hope among business people and diplomats that Myanmar, or Burma, as many
people still call the country, may be gradually moving away from years of paranoid authoritarianism and
Soviet-style economic management.”
Were George Orwell alive today he would certainly find ample raw material to write a sequel to “Burmese
Days,” perhaps with the title “Myanmar Days,” using the generals’ “election humbug,” technocrats’ “poverty
reduction humbug,” self-aggrandizing local elite’s “economic nationalism humbug,” just to name a few.
As a Burmese who has been pushing for change advocating both sanctions and engagement approaches
alternately, I feel these men of impeccable professional and educational backgrounds are pimping us all for
their ideology, as well as other undeclared interests.
They appear blinded by the hegemonic discourses that view Asia’s rising middle classes of capitalist wage
earners, with higher income and better Western training, as “agents of democratization,” while the reality tells
a different story.
Throughout Asia, the determined and bloody pushes for participatory forms of government—call them what
you will—are coming not from “educated,” urban middle classes, but rather from Thai peasants and urban
under-classes, Burmese political prisoners with only domestic schooling (save Aung San Suu Kyi), South East
Asia’s faceless migrant laborers, and tradition-bound religious orders such as Buddhist monks and Muslim
clerics.
Therefore, these new discourses of “Burma change” are remarkable in that they reek of intellectual dishonesty,
elitist paternalism and empirical shoddiness. But they pass as “respectable policy voices” because they
resonate with the hegemonic Western capitalist worldview inscribed in the corridors of global and regional
powers, even as they choose to ignore all too conveniently the deeply disturbing realities of Burma, and
beyond.
Here I offer samples of other Burmas, real not imagined, for these regime advisors, tutors and proxy
spokespersons to factor in their next media or official articulations: Burma’s militarized State which shows no
signs of retreating from power, politics and the plunder of public assets; ethnic communities making
preparations to flee to safety in the face of the looming new round of bloody wars between ceasefire groups
and the central military government; the inseparability of Burma’s narcotics industry and the generals’
political economy; the widening hunger and malnutrition and the constant presence of human insecurity; the
junta’s crazy pursuit of armaments projects and recent purchase of MiG-29s for about US $500 million; and
last but not least the 2,100 plus dissidents behind bars who risk their lives and those of their families so that
change—not the kind the proxy spin-doctors want the public and international community to swallow—will
eventually come to Burma.
In an ideological world still in the grip of the neo-liberal hegemony of “State Bad, Market Good”, effective
wholesale theft is spun as something preferable to ineffectual state-management.
Historically, large-scale systems of theft, exploitation and daylight robbery have often been justified as “divine
right to rule,” “civilizing mission,” “modernization” or “economic development.”
Orwell’s Mr Flory, an imperialist with intellectual honesty, tells Dr Veraswami, the sycophantic Indian doctor
with a colonized consciousness: “Of course, I don’t deny that we [British] modernize this country in certain
ways. We can’t help doing so…But we’re not civilizing them, we’re only rubbing our dirt onto them. Where’s it
going to lead, this uprush of modern progress, as you call it?...Sometimes I think that in two hundred years all
this, all this will be done—forests, villages, monasteries, pagodas all vanished… And all the forests shaved flat
—chewed into wood-pulp for the News of the World [newspaper], or sawn up into gramophone cases.”
Flory’s creator would be turning in his grave if he knew that China, India and other Asian neighbors, as well as
the global extractive and energy industries, have picked up where the Pax Britannica of Orwell’s days left off.
With international friends in high places bending over backward in order to spin for them, who can blame
Neanderthal “Naypyidaw men” for imagining that their eternal lordship over Burma’s land, life, water and oil
is enunciated in their “Constitution”?
Yes, onward with the Orwellian election! Slavery is freedom, indeed.

Dr Zarni is Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute of International Security Studies at Chulalongkorn
University and Research Fellow on Burma at LSE Global Governance.
Source :http://www.irrawaddy.org/election/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=172:orwells-ghost-looms-over-the-
election&catid=41:analysis&Itemid=119

Suu Kyi Against NLD Joining Elections

Speaking with The Irrawaddy after his meeting with Suu Kyi, Nyan Win said “Suu Kyi would not even think of
registering under these unjust [election] laws.”

He said, “She wanted party members to know that the party would have no dignity if it registers and
participates in the election.”

Aung San Suu Kyi

On Monday, the NLD Spokesman Khin Maung Swe said party members handed a letter to party Chairman
Aung Shwe on Monday saying NLD central executive committee members agreed that the scheduled assembly
of more than 100 party leaders on March 29 would leave the final decision to register the party to Suu Kyi and
Aung Shwe.

The letter said party members would not follow the initial plan to have a secret ballot on whether the party
should register on March 29.

The election law prohibits parties with members currently in detention, so a decision to register would force
Suu Kyi out of the party.

Last week, 92-year-old Aung Shwe, who was a Brigadier General under the former dictator Ne Win, and some
party leaders expressed their willingness to register the party, while other leaders stated their preference for
party dissolution—which the party would face if it does not register—rather than expelling Suu Kyi and
withdrawing the party's call for a review of the regime-drafted Constitution.

On Monday, the party issued a statement saying they had requested permission from the regime to have a
meeting between Suu Kyi and her party central executive committee members in order that the NLD can
continue its political functions. The statement also mentioned that the regime did not respond to a similar
request first made on March 17.

Leading party officials Win Tin and Khin Maung Swe disagree on the registration issue—Win Tin thinks the
party should not register while Khin Maung Swe thinks it should—yet both agreed that Suu Kyi should make
clear her opinion on what the party should do.

The party leadership is currently under pressure from exiled opposition members and some influential
individuals inside Burma not to register.

Last weekend, the renowned Burmese journalist Ludu Sein Win chastised the party, saying it has done nothing
for the public during the past 20 years.

Sein Win said if the NLD decides to register—which requires the party leadership to vow that it would protect
the junta's Constitution—then the party should make a public apology saying it was wrong for the party
leadership to have walked out of the junta's National Convention and issue the Shwegondaing Declaration
calling for a review of the Constitution.

The National Convention was held to draft the controversial 2008 Constitution and the NLD party decided to
walk out following Suu Kyi's release from house arrest in 1995.

Analysts say there is little chance for the party to repeat another landslide victory in this year's polls without
the endorsement of Suu Kyi.

But, Khin Maung Swe, who supports the party contesting the election, said the party can still become a viable
force in the future parliament even if it cannot get outright victory in the election.

“Even if the political space in the future parliament is very limited, it is our duty to expand the democratic
channel, even if it is just a crack, a crevice or a seepage,” he said.

Former political prisoners living in Rangoon said there is a lot of confusion within the party and among the
public on what the party should do.

“Daw Suu was the main decision maker when the party decided to leave the regime's National Convention,”
said a former political prisoner in Rangoon who wished to conceal his identity, adding that Suu Kyi has urged
the people to “respond to unjust laws with unity and courage.”

In 1990, when the NLD was divided on whether to contest the election, Suu Kyi's decision to participate broke
the gridlock and resulted in the NLD gaining an unexpected landslide victory, but the junta never
acknowledged the results.

If the NLD party fails to register within 60 days from March 8 when the junta's election law was announced, it
will cease to exist as a legal entity according to that law.

Source :http://www.irrawaddy.org/election/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:suu-kyi-
against-nld-joining-elections&catid=37:news&Itemid=118

New Party to Form in Arakan State

A new Arakan political party, under the name the Union of Myanmar National Force Arakan State Party, has
announced it will register to compete in the election, according to party chairman Aye Kyaing.

The party has already organized in 14 townships in Arakan State, which has 17 townships, said party
organizers, who will meet on Thursday to discuss registration procedures. The party will be based in Sittwe
and also open an office in Rangoon, Aye Kyaing said. He said the party will field candidates only in Arakan
State.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy, he said, “We are 90 percent sure to register. Members are studying specifications
of the party registration law. We'll try to solve conflicts and different points of view in a positive way.”
In 1990, Aye Kyaing severed as secretary of the National Unity Party(NUP) in Mrauk-U Township in Arakan
State. The NUP was transformed from an authoritarian, socialist party controlled by former dictator Ne Win
and was backed by the current regime when it called elections in 1990.
In the 1990 election, among 26 constituencies in Arakan State, 11 constituencies went to the Arakan League for
Democracy (ALD); the National League for Democracy won 9; and the National Democratic Party for Human
Rights won 4. The NUP failed to win any seats.
Aye Thar Aung, the secretary of the ALD, said that the party would probably not participate in the election
this year, citing the unfairness of the 2008 Constitution. However, he said the party would poll its members.
“Once there was a wave to form a party for ethnic Arakanese, but now we haven't heard much about forming a
party to represent Arakanese. Party members from Rangoon don't want to compete in the election,” said Aye
Thar Aung.
In some townships in Arakan State, the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association(USDA)
has begun campaign activities, according to local residents.
Meanwhile, authorities have started issuing foreign registration cards to ethnic Rohingya living in the
northern part of the state.
Khaing Mrat Kyaw, the chief editor at the Dhaka-based Narinjara news agency, said, “They have lived a long
time in northern Arakan State and authorities are giving them a chance to vote in the election. In the 1990
election, they also were allowed to vote.”
The Rohingya are the second largest ethnic group in Arakan State, after the Rakhine. Royingya are in the
majority in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung townships, in the northern part of the state. They
comprise nearly 30 percent of the state's population of 2.75 million people.
According to the new electoral law, foreign registration card holders, people who being considered for
citizenship, or people holding a temporary identification card, may vote if they are 18 or older.
Source :http://www.irrawaddy.org/election/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=186:new-
party-to-form-in-arakan-state&catid=37:news&Itemid=118

Voters Divided on NLD's Fate

A survey of Rangoon residents conducted by The Irrawaddy indicates that voters are divided on whether
Burma's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), should contest this year's general
election.

Our team in Rangoon questioned 374 eligible voters, including civil servants, who are not affiliated to any
political party. Two hundred men and women in the
20-40 age group were surveyed, while 174 were over
40.

In response to the question: “Should the NLD

participate in the election?” 166 people out of 374––
over 44 percent––said the NLD should not, while 146
respondents––39 percent––said it should.
Sixty-two respondents did not want to answer the
question, with many saying they did not want to put
additional pressure on the opposition party.
A Buddhist monk walks past a convoy of riot police deployed “Contesting the election means that the NLD is
outside Yangon, Myanmar, City Hall on March 19. (Photo: accepting the 2008 constitution,” said a teacher. “The
AP)
party must understand that, for the sake of the people, it should not accept the constitution. I believe the NLD
should not compete in the election. The party still represents the will of the people.”
A 35-year-old engineer said that he did not think the NLD should register for the election because the party
has called for, through its Shwegondaing Declaration, the military regime to conduct a review of the
Constitution. He said if the NLD decided to take part in the election, it would be annulling its own declaration,
which would in turn affect the party's reputation.
“The NLD has to expel Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners from the party in order to compete, so I
don't think it should register for the election. It should not accept those conditions,” said a graduate student.
“The NLD cannot contest the election freely, so it should not take part.” said a woman in her 20s.
“The NLD cannot win the election, so it is better that it stays out of it,” said a civil servant.
Of the respondents who said that the NLD should not participate, the most common reason given was because
the party was being forced to expel its leader and other political prisoners. The second most common reason
was that the Constitution is unacceptable.
However, others favored the NLD participating in the election.
“The NLD has to contest the election in order to maintain its status as a political party. Otherwise it will be
dissolved, resulting in greater difficulties for the democracy movement,” a 40-year old IT technician said.
“I think the NLD should register for the election,” said a retired headmaster. “People are on the party's side. If
the NLD is dissolved, people will be left without hope. I think the party should consider that.”
Of those respondents who favored the NLD's participating in the election, the most common reasons given
were related to the party maintaining its status within the political arena.
Those who declined to answer generally said they would accept the party's decision whatever it may be.
“The NLD is now in the middle of a crisis. We will let the party members decide by themselves and we will
support their decision. They are our leaders,” said a 47-year-old female market trader.
“Our collective view may put pressure on the NLD. That's why we should not answer the survey,” said a
retired army officer in his 70s. “We have to respect the decision made by the NLD members.”
The NLD has announced that it will hold a ballot among its members on March 29 on whether to compete in
the general election or not.
Led by Suu Kyi, the NLD won a landslide victory in the 1990 election, but was never allowed to take power by
the military junta.
Source :http://www.irrawaddy.org/election/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=187:voters-
divided-on-nlds-fate&catid=37:news&Itemid=118