Hundreds of groups oppose barring of PACE election observers

By Min Tun 14 Aug 2020

Min Tun | DMG
14 August, Sittwe

A total of 443 Myanmar civil society organisations issued a statement on August 13 objecting to a recent Union Election Commission decision to bar the People’s Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE) from monitoring the country’s upcoming general election.

“The UEC’s ban on election observation by an independent CSO may erode democratic norms,” said Ko Sithu, general secretary of the Doe Myae Network, one of the groups that signed on to the statement. “We will oppose election observation bans on any organisations. We are not satisfied with it as the UEC is restricting civil society ... So we issued this statement.”

PACE this week said a UEC reply letter dated July 30 indicated that the commission would not allow PACE to deploy poll watchers for the election on November 8.

The UEC letter said PACE’s application for election observing was rejected because the foreign funding received by PACE is not in conformity with the Association Registration Law.

Ko Han Soe Tun, PACE program manager, said: “The restriction of election monitoring and observation in a young democratic country may hamper the transparency of elections.”

“Our main purpose is to gauge to what extent the election is transparent, and to strengthen accountability and responsibility. If it is strong, the election will be democratic. So the country should retain the election observation as before. Only then will it see more progress. The ban on observation shows transparency is backsliding. This is our major concern,” he added.

PACE deployed observers during Myanmar’s last general election in 2015, two by-elections in 2017 and 2018, and the Yangon City Development Committee election in 2019. It did not report any major issues of contention with the UEC or other election stakeholders during its previous monitoring missions.

Ko Sithu of the Doe Myae Network said: “I think it is an intentional act. In the past, PACE got the green light. It is assumed that there may be some influences over the UEC. But the next point is that I myself feel surprised by the fact that the UEC has changed its attitude.”

PACE said the UEC should allow all local CSOs to carry out monitoring and observation in order for the 2020 general election to be held successfully and peacefully.

PACE had planned to monitor the November election using around 2,900 observers nationwide.