Big Burmese Interest in Result of US Presidential Election

By WAI MOE

A crowd of about 600, most of them young people, packed the US Embassy’s American Center in Rangoon on Wednesday morning to watch Barack Obama sweep to victory in the US presidential election.

The city’s teashops were also crowded with customers watching the historic event on satellite TV.

The US Embassy’s American Center held an “Election Watch.” People gathered there from 9 a.m.—“Most of them are young people,” an American Center official told The Irrawaddy.

An American Center student, Ko Ye, said: “I support Obama. I think he will bring change to the world. As a young man, Obama can act dynamically.”

A young staffer with a UN agency in Rangoon said the election had also commanded big interest in his office.

A Rangoon journalist told The Irrawaddy that colleagues and civil servants kept each other informed on cell phones about Obama’s election to the White House.

He said the election had been followed in Burma more closely than any previous one because the Burmese people, encouraged by the removal of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, were hoping the US would act to end the tyrannical rule of Snr-Gen Than Shwe and his junta.

Thakin Chun Tun, a veteran politician and diplomat, said: “Obama’s victory shows how leadership skill is more important than skin color and race.”

Burmese living abroad also followed the election intensely. Ko Jay, who lives in New York, said he agreed with the general view that history had been made by Barack Obama.

Moe Thee Zun, a former student leader now living in the US, said that although he had supported Republican contender John McCain because of his Burma policy, Obama’s victory showed liberalism winning over conservatism and youth over old politics. “We should appreciate Americans who fight for what they want to be,” he said.

Some of those American citizens are Burmese who have won US citizenship—Ko Shwe, for instance. Voting in New York in his first election ever, he chose Obama. “The first vote in my life puts me on the winning side,” he said.