Associations throughout Mon State representing people with disabilities (PWDs) are working towards being able to have every PWD from 10 townships in Mon State cast their votes in the upcoming 2020 general election, according to Saw Aung Thein, the chairman of the Mon State Disabled People’s Association.

“We will help disabled people who have the right to vote, vote during the upcoming 2020 general election. Also, we will work towards finding new disabled voters and assisting them to vote,” he said.

During the 2015 election,  2.6 percent of persons with disabilities out of 5.3 percent of the population of PWD in Mon State officially had a chance to cast their ballots but less than 1 percent  of disabled people actually got to vote, he explained to  Mon News Agency.

“The reason was persons with a disability were being discriminated against. Also, it seemed that some people believed that the disabled people were irrelevant to the election,” Saw Aung Thein added.

Saw Aung Thein continued that the reasons why some of the PWDs, including visual impairments, physical disability, hearing impairments and intellectual disability, did not get to vote during last elections were due to the difficulties of the voting booths and discrimination faced by the PWD voters. As a result, [some] PWD voters lost the opportunity to cast their votes.

For the 2020 general election, the election will be held in accordance with these five standards: 1) free in accordance with the law, 2) fair, 3) transparent, 4) acceptable by the majority, 5) the election result complied with the public wish, addressed by U Saw Daniel Kyi, a member of the Union Election Commission (UEC) during his previous visit in Mon State.

According to the Union Election Commission (UEC) meeting result no. (36/2019), the UEC would be listing the eligible voters, which is everyone who is at least 18 years old by December 31st in 2020.

According to the 2014 census, the total population of Mon State is over 2 million and there are over 5.3 percent of persons with disabilities.

Hein Lin Htet, secretary of Mon State Election Commission, said project strategy has been drawn for the election activities. The strategy is to aim for all inclusion, to reduce possible conflict matters, to have a free and fair election, and to make the election activities and the step-by-step activities by the election sub-commission transparent and to have everyone trust and accept the results.