Nai Marn : With less than a month left until Burma’s election day, candidates of the All Mon Regions Democracy Party (AMDP) are growing increasingly frustrated, claiming that orders from the government’s Election Commission have prevented them from campaigning.
“The time is just a few days left [until the election], the candidates from our party want to start the campaign, but the election commission does not allow to [us] campaign, but now we have started the campaign by our strategy,” said an AMDP candidate.
The AMDP’s candidate list was approved by the Election Commission this September, after a preliminary campaign in Mon areas. The party’s campaign problems, and the Election Commission’s ban, surfaced after individual candidates were approved.
AMDP candidates explained that despite the Election Commission’s ban on the party’s campaign, candidates have found ways to gain supporters discreetly; the party has taken to distributing information on the AMDP’s platform, and direction on voting procedures, to the populace in Mon areas on small sheets of paper.
“We distributed them around the Mon people, it’s good for our party [saves time and money for the party], also the when the people see that letter, they understand about our party and how to vote,” a second AMRDP candidate reported.
The first AMDP candidate IMNA spoke with also reported that the Burmese government’s proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), has not been prevented from openly campaigning in Mon areas, but that the USDP has been primarily conducting its campaign among family members and acquaintances.
Residents of Mon State and the heavily Mon populated Thai-Border region told IMNA’s field reporters that they expect that the USDP will win the upcoming elections, largely thanks to the covert support of the Burmese government, but that they expect that the USDP will struggle to gain supporters in Burma’s ethnic minority areas, where local ethnic political groups are favored.
In attempts to gain supporters within ethnic minority areas, the USDP has adopted pro-ethnic campaign strategies. IMNA’s field reporters learned that USDP candidates campaigning in areas heavily populated by Burma’s ethnic minority groups frequently choose to wear the local ethnic garb popular in each area, and to mimic the campaign styles of ethnic minority political partys also contesting for the region.
This strategy has been implemented particularly aggressively in the Mon regions that the AMDP plans to represent in the upcoming elections.
USDP candidates recently distributed Mon calendars to party supporters in Paung Township, and informed local residents that the party’s candidates also identified as Mon, a resident from Paung reported.
According to a youth from Ye town, the USDP began a campaign in Mon State’s Khawza Sub-Township after learning that the AMDP planned to campaign in the area. The USDP took pains to arrive in the area before the Mon party reached Khawza Sub-Township, and led a campaign for local residents while wearing Mon traditional dress and claiming to be “also Mon”.
Sources in Mudon Township reported that the local USDP candidates are preparing 30,000 Mon longyis to give to individuals in the area who are willing to advocate voting for the party.
