To be elected, candidates running for office in the 2010 general elections on the Thai-Burma border will have to garner votes from the Wa, who were relocated there 10 years ago, according to sources visiting the border recently.

“According to figures provided by the Mongton Township Council office, there are 24,000 Wa, and all have received permanent citizenship cards (pink cards),” a source, who is on a business visit told SHAN. “That is as many as local Shans and Lahu put together,” he added.

The United Wa State Army (UWSA) in cooperation with the country’s military regime moved down 126,000 Wa people from the Sino-Burma border in the north to the Thai-Burma border in a three-year operation, according to Thai border-based Lahu National Development Organization (LNDO) in its ‘Unsettling Moves’ report in 2002. (Official figures however put the figure at 80,000):

     •  Mongton        32,560          opposite Chiangmai
     •  Monghsat       89,923          opposite Chiangmai-Chiangrai
     •  Tachilek         3,450            opposite Chiangrai

“In Monghsat, the Wa population is at least twice as many,” he added. “So if the UWSA decides to field its own candidates, the junta is going to have a problem defeating them (in the said two townships).”

The UWSA, in the face of demands from the junta to transform itself into a border security force, so far has shown little interest in contesting the 2010 general elections.

In Tachilek, opposite Maesai, there are more non-Wa than Wa. The total population there in 2007 was 96,632.

The military authorities have already approached local people in Mongton and Monghsat, who are respected and looked up to in their communities, according to the sources.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) won in two townships, Monghsat and Tachilek, while the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) won in Mongton in the 1990 elections.