Dispirited voters snub Myanmar election

Myanmar's first election in 20 years was marked by a low turnout and reluctant voters yesterday as many people appeared to have decided there was little point participating in a poll considered skewed from the start.

In cities such as Yangon, the former capital, turnout may have been as low as 30 per cent, some sources said, despite threats from the military authorities that people could be jailed if they failed to vote. Armed police and troops were patrolling the streets.

There was no word on the official turnout or the result of the poll. In reality there was little to wait for; most observers have believed all along the polls would deliver a victory for two pro-establishment parties that have the backing of the military.

"So many people did not go to the polling booths. The number of voters was very low," Nyan Win, a lawyer for detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, told the Independent. "People are very angry with the junta. They cannot accept the junta."

The British Ambassador to Myanmar, Andrew Heyn said: "Given that these are the first elections in 20 years, it feels flat, very low key, and little different from a normal [day]. That's obviously a reflection of all the restrictions of the campaign and a feeling that the result is predetermined."

Before the vote, which authorities, led by General Than Shwe, insisted was a stepping stone to full democracy, a quarter of parliamentary seats were reserved for the military and restrictions were imposed on other parties.

Many opposition groups, among them Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), decided not to participate.

As a result, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), an organisation stuffed with ex-military candidates and two dozen incumbent ministers, and the National Unity Party, the latter backed by supporters of Myanmar's previous military dictator, were the only parties with the resources to put up candidates in nearly all of the 1159 seats. This left many of the country's 29 million eligible voters with the choice between military rulers past and present. In the border areas, where parties representing ethnic minorities were expected to do well, the junta cancelled voting, disenfranchising an estimated 1.5 million voters.

US President Barack Obama dismissed the poll as neither free nor fair.

The last election in Myanmar was held in 1990. The NLD won by a landslide, only to see the result annulled by the authorities. The aftermath saw a wave of arrests of political opponents. Suu Kyi has spent about 15 of the last 21 years either in jail or detained at her lakeside home in Yangon. Her latest term of arrest is due to end on November 13 but it is unclear whether she will be released.

"This was a very sleepy election. In [Yangon] we believe turnout was just 30 per cent," said Aung Zaw, editor of the Irrawaddy news magazine, an exiled media organisation that closely monitors events inside Myanmar. "I think there were two factors for this; Ms Suu Kyi reminded voters that they did not have to vote and the concern about vote rigging and other irregularities."

Early results tallied by the Irrawaddy showed the junta's USDP headed towards a predictable victory, having won six seats, according to the newspaper's sources, versus three for the opposition National Democratic Front.

Some optimists believe the election may create a little motion in an environment that has stagnated since the September 2007 Saffron Uprising. Even if just one or two opposition parliamentarians are elected, they say, there might be a modicum of debate and political oversight, where none currently exists.

"It seems likely that the very small public political space will be widened and this is probably the best outcome we can hope for from the election," Myanmar expert Monique Skidmore, of the Australian National University, told AP.

But most Western observers believe the polls will do little more than cement the role of the military establishment.

- INDEPENDENT