Flooding may lead to postponement of Myanmar vote

Supporters of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy cheering at a rally on Sunday.

Four parties agreed to the postponement, including the ruling army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. “We have not yet made a decision and will consider the views of political parties”, said Tin Tun, director general and secretary of the election commission.

Myanmar political analyst Yan Myo Thein, told the New York Times that any postponement would have shown that the election commission and president Thein Sein were “not honest and trustworthy in politics”.

Government officials cited recent flooding and and civil unrest as the reasons for proposing the delay after summoning party representatives to a meeting in the capital Naypidaw on Tuesday. Myanmar’s Union Election Commission said elections can not be held in over 400 village areas in total, largely in Kachin and Shan in the north and Karen state in the east. Officials did not say why polls in Karen were cancelled.

He didn’t say whether the polls might be delayed nationwide or only in areas affected by landslides and flooding in western and northwestern Myanmar.

Severe floods since July have killed at least 80 people and temporarily displaced about 1.6 million, according to United Nations statistics, but flooding has eased since then.

Government officials met later with the election commission and decided that a delay would cause a variety of problems, officials said. “So the commission has to consider this when deciding whether to postpone or not”, said No Than Kap, who is standing for the Chin Progressive Party. They will lose if they hold the election in November or in one or two months’ time.

Former political prisoner Nay Phone Latt, a candidate for Yangon’s regional parliament, told the NAR: “We got a good reaction, in spite of the weather”.

Although the delay has not been confirmed, the reports will raise concerns over interference by the country’s entrenched military rulers in what has being touted as Myanmar’s first free and fair general election. “On balance it is good that it is going ahead”, she said, reacting to the news that the vote will take place as planned on November 8.