The Irrawaddy Burma Election 2010

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NDF Urges Investigation of Advance Vote

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The National Democratic Front (NDF) will request Burma's Election Commission (EC) take action on illegal advanced voting, vote rigging and general malpractice at polling stations in the election.

The NDF statement said the party takes pride that people voted for the party and they contested the election for the future sake of the public, national reconciliation and the emergence of democracy and human rights.

“We have a duty not only to urge a review of the advanced vote but also to inform the people of malpractice at polling stations and urge the EC to take action,” said Khin Maung Shwe, a leading member of the NDF.

“We won nearly 85 percent of votes after counting at some polling stations, but the next day we were defeated by the advance vote,” he said. “So people who voted for the party want to know why the result turn out the way it did.”

On Wednesday, 20 candidates who stood for election in Pegu Township for the National Unity Party (NUP), National Democratic Front (NDF) and the Union Democratic Party (UDP) called for a new vote.

The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), a Bangkok-based independent organization for monitoring elections in the Asia region, issued a statement on Tuesday saying the EC and State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) must clarify and seriously investigate irregularites in the advance voting and counting process, which was not made transparent to the public and the media.

“Even though the UEC [EC] did not make the official dates of advance voting widely known,” ANFREL said, “unfortunately, many advance votes were taken outside of that official timeframe.”

The EC must thoroughly investigate these claims while refusing to certify any results until their investigations are complete, said ANFREL.

ANFREL also said that it is crucial for the EC and SPDC to answer  seven questions raised by people from inside and outside Burma that mainly focus on the advance voting process.

ANFREL also requested “a re-vote in all problematic constituencies to correct the flaws in the voting and counting process.”
 

Quotable

Nyan_win80"Once her [Aung San Suu Kyi's] sentence expires in November, and that notion is not disputed, it is our understanding that she will have served her sentence."
—Nyan Win, the foreign minister of Burma

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