The Department of Immigration and National Registration (INR) is issuing temporary identification (ID) cards to residents of about 46 villages in Tavoy District, Tenessarim Division. The cards permit residents without other forms of ID to vote in the upcoming election, scheduled for 2010.

The registration push began on November 15th and will run until the 15th of December. “Staff from the Department of Immigration and National Registration in Tavoy came to our village to register IDs for us. That department went to every village to register villagers,” said a man from Alae Shakhan village in Kalein Aung Sub Township.

According to an officer from the INR, under the Ministry of Immigration and Population, they are giving IDs to villagers who do not have ID and to people who received temporary IDs before the May 10th referendum on Burma’s draft constitution. Villagers with the temporary IDs must pay 1,500 kyat for the new IDs, said the officer, while those without any form of ID and villagers working in Thailand must pay 20,000 kyat.

According to source close to the INR, 46 numbers of villages are to be visited by INR officers over the next month. A source close to the INR estimated that between one and seven hundred residents will be registered in each village, depending on the local population. The source close to the INR also said that Ye Township in southern Mon State, Kalein Aung Sub Township and other townships in Tenasserim Division would see similar registration pushes.

Villagers without IDs will not be able to participate in the upcoming election, which will be Burma’s first in over two decades. Temporary IDs were also issued before the military government conducted a referendum on a new national constitution in May 2008. Though the ID cards enabled residents to vote, they did not serve as proof of citizenship.