The Burmese military junta is including people, who are outside Burma in the voters list, but excluding some still inside the country, in Myitkyina, Kachin State, in Northern Burma, according to local residents.

Many residents from Tatkone, Shatapru, Du Kahtawng and Dum Gan quarters, in Myitkyina, are not included in the voters list, the sources said.

“A lot of people are not in the list. They (the regime) pick and choose as they like, and they are not including people over 18 years old. They have put whoever they want on the list and do what they want,” said a resident.

Most of the excluded people are members of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and their families, friends and people connected to them, local people said.

“They rejected them because of links with the KIO. All KIO family members are totally wiped off the voters list,” said the resident of the city.

In Du Kahtawng quarter, the authorities have not taken the names of people who moved out of the quarter off the list, according to local people.

When people complained to the township commission office in Myitkyina regarding the counting of voters, that office directed them to the state commission office, which redirected them back to the township commission office.

“We do not compile the names of voters, but the township commission is doing that in every township,” the state commission office said.

Authorities in other quarters in Myitkyina added the names of people who left the country in the list.

When quarter administrative officials were compiling names of those over 18, they included the names of family members who were travelling or away from home, according to a resident from Kachin Su quarter.

At the headquarters of the former armed group, the New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K) in the eastern part of Kachin State, in Pangwa District, which has already transformed into the junta-controlled Border Guard Force (BGF), the voters list is yet to be announced.

“We heard there will be an announcement of the voters list very soon, but it has still not come. We don’t know if the polling station is at the school or city hall,” said the resident of Pangwa.

The population in Pangwa District is about 1,000, and all villages, including Lupi, where the BGF camp is based, have to vote at one polling station in Pangwa, a local source said.