Myanmar officials suggest poll postponement: Suu Kyi party

Myanmar’s general election will be held as planned on November. 8 despite a proposal by the election commission that it be delayed because of recent landslides and flooding, state media said Tuesday.

The body had earlier on Tuesday said it wanted to postpone next month’s general election due to pervasive flooding and landslides throughout the country, which could prevent voters from reaching polling stations.

Apart from the USDP, two smaller parties, the National Development Party, led by a former presidential adviser, Nay Zin Latt, and the Myanmar Farmers’ Development Party, also spoke in favor of postponing the vote, the people present said. While the meeting came a day after the commission announced the cancellation of voting in hundreds of village tracts in ethnic areas due to security concerns, the UEC did not give this as a reason for delaying the election, according to NLD delegate U Win Htein.

The UEC had said that a few areas still reeling from the disaster may not be ready to go to the polls in time, but Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD argued that the obstacles could be overcome.

The commission had urged the major political parties to agree to the postponement.

“We have already made campaigns in those areas and the cancelations have largely impacted our supporters and our ethnic voting”, Saw Ye Win Naing said. Three parties expressed no opinion and three others were absent from the meeting.

Widespread flooding devastated large parts of Myanmar in August, killing over 100 and displacing more than a million. In 2008, Myanmar’s military rulers rebuffed calls to delay a constitutional referendum held a week after a cyclone killed about 140,000 people.

She is not expected to attend the ceasefire signing, which is between the government and eight armed groups.

The election follows a period of reform and opening up to investment in the former pariah State, after the junta ceded power to a quasi-civilian government in 2011.

Myanmar’s military retains significant sway in the nation five years after giving up half-a-century of direct rule.

Election monitors declined to comment on the situation until a final decision is reached by the election commission.