Junta Queries Candidates for 2010 Election

By WAI MOE

The Burmese junta’s mass organization, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), is questioning businessmen about running as candidates in the 2010 election in a pro-junta political party.

A respected businessman in Rangoon, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Irrawaddy recently that in January he was asked by USDA officials to run in the 2010 general elections.

“They told me to reply as soon as possible and to keep it confidential,” he said. “As far as I know, in my township I was the only one approached to run in the election.”

He said it was his understanding that the USDA would not directly take part in the election but it would organize the formation of proxy political parties when the election law is announced at a later date.

Aye Thar Aung, an Arakan leader, said he also has been told by businessmen in Arakan State in western Burma that they were offered the chance to run as pro-junta candidates in the election.

“They [businessmen] told me that they were asked to run in the election by high ranking military officials from the West Regional Command,” he said.

There were 492 constituencies in the 1990 elections. The main opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) won 392 seats.

In the forthcoming election, there are 440 seats in the People’s Assembly (also known as the Pyithu Hluttaw).

Two-thirds of the People’s Assembly positions, or 330 seats, will be directly elected in and a third of the seats (110) will be appointed by the commander-in-chief of the Tatmadaw (Burma’s armed forces) under Article 109 of the 2008 constitution, which was backed by the junta.

The junta claimed the constitution was approved by more than 90 percent of the popular vote in the referendum in May 2008. Dissidents and international observers say the referendum was neither free nor fair.

Although the election is scheduled to be held in 2010 as the junta’s fifth step on its “seven-step roadmap to democracy,” the ruling generals have not yet announced the election laws or provided a detailed timetable for the election.

Some journalists and observers expected the junta to announce the election law in January or February.

“All of those rumors are just expectations. Everything is uncertain in Burma,” said Ohn Maung, a veteran Burmese politician, noting that even passport applications of pro- election politicians who were scheduled to attend a seminar in Hong Kong had been rejected recently by authorities.

“I do not expect the election law until late June,” he said. “The law will come very late because the junta does not want to give enough time for the opposition [to organize],” he said.

In the 1990 election, the junta announced the election timetable in February 1989.