The UEC decision to deny voting rights to over 225,000 voters in Pauktaw and Maungdaw Townships in Arakan State rights, failed to respect local township election sub-commission assessments, that in fact, these townships are stable and in a position to hold the election.
U Tun Hlaing, chair of the Maungdaw Township Election Sub-Commission said: “We are in a position to hold the election in Maungdaw Township. The situation is stable here. I previously thought that the election can be held in Maungdaw Township, even if the election cannot be held in other townships (In Rakhine State) The election commission asked me about the situation three months ago. I replied that the election can be held in Maungdaw.”
U Aung Kyaw Htwe, a candidate from the Arakan National Party (ANP) from Pauktaw Township said: “During the over 70-year-armed conflicts since the post-independence period in Myanmar, not even the sound of gunfire has been heard in Pauktaw. UEC’s assumption that the free and fair election cannot be held in such a peaceful and stable township is wrong.”
The executive director of the Yangon-based Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security Min Zaw Oo also concluded the UEC’s decision was very strange. On the day after the UEC’s announcement, he uploaded to Facebook a table showing the number of clashes recorded by MIPS since the start of the year in Rakhine townships and Paletwa. Topping the chart was Paletwa, with 90 clashes. At the bottom, with zero clashes, was Pauktaw (reported in The Frontier).
U Aung Naing, the project coordinator for the Arakan State Election Monitoring refers to serious setbacks for democracy in Myanmar if the UEC does not reverse its decision: “Due to the cancellation of election in the conflict-hit northern Arakan State, there may be intensified fighting and more human rights violations. These townships have already suffered many human rights violations. The voters have lost their right to choose the candidates who will represent the voices of voters. The voters have also been deprived of their freedom of expression,”
The UEC announced on October 16th that nine townships, 15 wards in four townships and 137 village-tracts are excluded from the election. Pauktaw and Maungdaw Townships are included in this list of canceled elections townships in spite of the lack of evidence of any security problems. The actual fighting between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army (AA) is taking place in seven out of the nine skipped townships in Arakan State.
There are over 197,000 voters in Pauktaw Township and over 28,000 in Maungdaw Township. At a press conference on October 20th, the UEC said it would hold the election in No –Go areas if the voters can cast their votes safely.” It is now up to the UEC to find any scrap of evidence that to prove voters cannot cast their voters safely” given all the evidence on the ground that any problem in Pauktaw is fabricated and not real.
According to the Arakan State Election Sub-Commission, more than 1,200,000 voters in the nine skipped townships of Arakan State will lose their voting rights. The UEC canceled the elections in Pauktaw, Ponnagyun, Yathaedaung, Buthedaung, Maungdaw, Kyauktaw, Minbya, Myaebone and MraukU Townships in Arakan State.
There are over 1,640,000 eligible voters in Arakan State for the November 8 General Election. This does not include 600,000 Muslims inside Rakhine State, who have been denied.
