The Irrawaddy Burma Election 2010

RANGOON — The political temperature is rising rapidly in Burma as the country prepares for its first election in two decades on Nov. 7 amid uncertainty about the possibility that the National Unity Party (NUP) could upset the ruling regime's plans for an overwhelming victory by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

RANGOON — In downtown Rangoon, less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 election, life appears much as usual. People lounge and relax in roadside tea-shops, children run and play among vehicles and the detritus of roadworks, monks – and nuns, in miraculously clean, pink tunics with tan shoulder robes and brown umbrellas –