Arakan election watch group to monitor hundreds of polling locations

By Min Tun 28 Oct 2020

Min Tun | DMG
28 October 2020, Sittwe 

The Arakan Election Monitoring Committee will be keeping a close eye on more than 400 polling stations on Election Day as questions about the freeness and fairness of the upcoming vote remain an open question with just over a week to go until ballots are cast. 

Thandwe, Ann, Taungup, Kyaukphyu, Ramree and Manaung townships will be given priority in the monitoring, said U Khaing Kaung San, a leading member of the watch group, who added that the committee planned to deploy about 400 poll observers. 

“There can be vote cheating,” he said, explaining that the goal of his organisation was to “check whether it is free and fair.”  

U Khaing Kaung San noted that questions about fairness were already acute in Arakan State, 

“because most people in Arakan State will not be able to vote,” with the Union Election Commission (UEC) earlier this month ruling out elections in several townships based on security concerns.  

“However, are the elections fair in the [permitted] election areas? The situation of voters’ participation, and what could be the controversies. For example, a place like Ann Township can have many advance votings. We will be watching all these things,” he told DMG.  

On October 16, the UEC said elections would not be held in the entirety of nine Arakan State townships — Pauktaw, Ponnagyun, Rathedaung, Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Kyauktaw, Minbya, Myebon and Mrauk-U — as well as 15 wards and 137 village-tracts across four other townships in the state.  

The partially cancelled townships were Kyaukyphyu (two wards and 52 village-tracts), Ann (three wards and 29 village-tracts), Sittwe (four village-tracts) and Taungup (10 wards and 52 village-tracts). But the UEC subsequently took some constituencies off of its no-election areas list, including three village-tracts in Kyaukphyu Township and four village-tracts in Ann Township.  

With the electoral reconfigurations, there will be only 755 polling stations in eight Arakan State townships, with just 448,852 eligible voters within those constituencies, according to the Arakan State Election Monitoring Committee. 

Prior to the UEC’s election cancellations, Arakan State had been expected to have 2,595 polling stations and nearly 1.65 million eligible voters.