Elections in Burma (Myanmar) will decide on further democratization

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) criticizes that the Muslim minority in Burma (Myanmar) is not adequately represented in this Sunday’s national and regional parliamentary elections. “Even before the polling, the elections are overshadowed by the de facto exclusion of an entire population group, jeopardizing the country’s entire democratization process,“ said the STP’s Asia-consultant, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Friday. “How is Burma supposed to make progress in the way of national reconciliation if the members of a certain religious community are de facto excluded from political life?” For fear of being vilified by the Buddhist extremists of the Ma Ba Tha Movement, most political parties decided not to field any Muslim candidates.

There are only 11 Muslims among the 6,062 candidates that were accepted by the National Electoral Commission (UEC). Many Muslim politicians were not allowed to run in the elections. In Rakhine State, for example, 17 of the 18 candidates of the Muslim Democracy and Human Rights Party were not admitted, although about 5 percent of the population of the multiethnic and multi-religious state are Muslims. The 11 Muslim politicians now running in the elections had initially been excluded from the elections as well, but were then admitted following criticism from abroad. “However, most of these candidates stand no chance in the elections. As large parties such as the NLD of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi or the ruling USDP are not fielding any Muslim candidates, they can only try to be noticed as independent candidates. Khin Maung Thein, a Muslim Pathi who belongs to the co-governing Union National Congress of President Thein Sein, is the only exception with a real chance to win a mandate.

“In public, Aung San Suu Kyi advocates for national reconciliation, but she obviously does not go to a lot of effort to put an end to the marginalization of the Muslim Rohingya,” said Delius. Yesterday, she thus asked foreign journalists at a press conference not to overemphasize the Rohingya, stating that the country has other problems than the situation in Rakhine state.

Buddhist nationalists had confiscated the voting cards of tens of thousands of Rohingya, so they cannot cast their vote. Of the almost 100,000 refugees who have been living in the 20 refugee camps in Rakhine State since the outbreak of violence between the Buddhist Rakhine and the Rohingya, only 150 are allowed to vote on Sunday. Further, most of the Muslim Kaman (an officially recognized Muslim population group in Burma, with several thousand members) aren’t allowed to vote either, as they have no voting cards. Other Muslims – even if they are officially recognized as citizens of Burma – fear problems and new violence by the Buddhist nationalists if they vote for the NLD opposition.

Header photo: European Commission DG ECHO via Flick