On July 26, the State Administrative Council’s (SAC) appointed Union Election Commission (UEC) released a statement dismissing the 2020 nationwide election results. The UEC claims that 11 million votes were fraudulent out of over 37 million votes cast across the country.
According to the UEC, the breakdown for Mon State, with over 1,800,000 eligible voters, claimed that more than 500,000 votes were fraudulent. According to the UEC, many individuals voted more than once. Their statement claims that the number of double votes amounted to 17,000 individuals and that triplicate voting occurred 13,000 times.
Critics of the UEC statement responded quickly. U Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, in an interview with RFA, said, “This is against the people’s will. This is evidence that they (the military) have worked hard to confirm their coup. Dismissing the election results to the world is the latest attempt to show their coup is fair. But we see political parties (including those that support the military) are not supporting this.”Â
The UEC statement also implicated the National League for Democracy in their claims that fraudulent voting took place in last year’s election. Accusations of impropriety included the NLD appointing regional and State Chief Ministers to serve as members of Election sub-commissions, allowing individuals to vote without ID cards, and barring election campaign activities of other parties in certain areas.
Restrictions that were introduced in certain areas of the country were announced as necessary due to either security concerns or public health measures intended to mitigate and prevent the further spread of covid-19. Also, it is within the power of the governing party to appoint representatives to election sub-commissions.
The previous UEC issued their findings following the 2020 general election, which showed 1,106 NLD candidates competed in the elections, and 920 of those candidates won in a landslide.
The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won 71 elections (constituencies). The remainder of the Hluttaw seats went to a mix of ethnic political parties.
