Leaders of the Burmese military junta are into a new activity, which is “collecting and distributing old clothes” from and to the people, sources in eastern Shan State said.

Towards the end of April, Prime Minister General Thein Sein visited several townships in Eastern Shan State to mobilise support for the 2010 elections. He brought with him bundles of clothes to some towns, a source said.

On April 25, Thein Sein together with Shan State-Kayah State Commander, Lieutenant General Min Aung Hlaing donated two packets of clothes to people in Mong Yang Township, 90 kilometres northeast of Keng Tung, where they discussed the proposed 2010 elections and promised 200 mobile phones at cheap prices to woo voters.

The clothes, they said, were for the poor people. These were kept at the Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) office before being handed over to village heads.

“The bags were very heavy. About three or four people had to carry each bag,” he added.

About four days later, some members of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) opened the packets and found that the clothes were very old, some worn out.

 “The clothes were like rags and almost torn. No one took them,” said another source.

On 10 May, Kengtung based Shan State East Peace and Development Council ordered the Mongyang TPDC to collect old clothes from every household from each village and send it to Kengtung within three days, a source said.

Villagers were told to bring their clothes to their village headmen’s house.  The village headmen in turn brought the collected clothes to the TPDC office.

“They are collecting clothes from our township to donate them to another township, and from another township to us,” said a villager wryly. “They are trying to win our support for the polls.”

Thein Sein was quoted by The National of United Arab Emirates, 6 April 2009 issue, to have said: We cannot afford to lose this election. Otherwise we have wasted the last 20 years.