Akka Non —The Election Commission has proposed to the Hluttaw (Parliament) that migrant workers who stay in Myanmar for 90 days or three months be allowed to vote in the 2020 election. If accepted this will be a change to the 2015 election law (section 3a) that required migrants workers to have stayed in Myanmar for a period of 6 months or 180 days in order to be eligible to cast their vote.
Representatives from both the Mon Unity Party (MUP) and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) voiced concerns with the proposed change.
“If it is changed to three months, the situation will get worse. Ethnic parties will be affected if the migrant workers are coming down to our area. The ones who got affected the most are the Karen and Mon,” Mon Unity Party (MUP) Joint Secretary (2) Nai San Thin.
“Who will assure if a person has stayed for three months or not. There has been a process of newcomers to report their whereabouts to the village administrator in the past. However, the guest registration is no longer available,” he added.
According to U Win Maw Oo, Secretary of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in Mon State, the change could have a percussive effect on not only ethnic parties but other smaller parties as well.
“Eligibility of migrant workers casting their votes in the region is unfavorable for small parties as well as ethnic parties,” said U Win Maw Oo.
In the previous election, some ethnic parties informed the Union Election Committee of being affected by migrant worker matters in their constituencies.
During a meeting held on July 8th, the Mon Unity Party (MUP) proposed to the Union Election Commission to limit migrant workers voting rights to only be applied to the party representative in their region.
According to a report on the status of the official voting list, over 17,020,000 voters have been registered as the end of September 2019. This number does not yet include military personnel and their family members, according to the Mon State Election Sub-commission.
In 2015, there were 1,016,000 registered voters but that number has fluctuated to as many as 1,510,000. Election observers say 50% of voters are migrant workers from other ethnic regions but who are working in Mon State.
