The People’s Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE) plans to monitor several aspects of the process to fill 19 vacant constituencies, both before and on Election Day, the organisation said in a statement on 21 November.
As part of this effort, PACE is preparing to conduct an independent voter list verification in all by-election constituencies. “Even though there are only a few seats in this upcoming by-election, I think it is a crucial and important process to observe. It is important to measure to what extent the recommendations made last year by domestic and international observers have been taken into consideration to improve the election process, including areas such as the independence of the Union Election Commission, the capacity of the sub-commissions and their communication with UEC, the administration of election-day procedures, the process to update the voter list and the quality of the voter list itself, more transparent mechanisms for advanced voting, the role of civil society, and citizen access to election information, said Sai Ye Kyaw Swar Myint, Executive Director of PACE.”
The UEC announced that out of 31 vacant constituencies, 19 will hold by-elections on April 1, 2017. The tentative timeline for the by-elections process was also announced in late October.
