Widespread Fraud

Electoral fraud began throughout the country, long before election day. Regime-backed parties, from early on, were given free reign to carry out acts of vote buying, ranging from exchanges of funds for votes to giving out free national identification cards for an individual’s electoral right. The distribution of national identification cards was a countrywide practice during the 2008 constitutional referendum to coerce support for the Constitution. National identification cards are extremely useful for the local community as they provide greater freedom of movement as well as other social benefits. However, not only were many voters obliged to vote for SPDC parties in return for the cards, but national identification cards also increase the regime’s ability to carry out surveillance and control over the general population.

Another problematic area of fraud during the elections was illegal advance voting. Citizens of Burma are allowed to cast advance ballots if they will not be in their constituency at the time of voting, either elsewhere in Burma or outside the country. However, regime backed parties, along with local SPDC officials forced large sectors of society to cast advance ballots regardless of their ability to access their respective polling stations on the day of elections. The election laws only loosely outline the process of collecting, transporting and counting advance votes, thus opening the process up to extensive electoral fraud. Many political parties and voters claim that these manipulated advance votes were the reason for USDP’s significant lead in the election results.

Regime-backed parties were able to carry out such acts of fraud with very little restriction; the USDP has committed hundreds of election violations, but the process of filing a complaint is absurdly complicated. Those filing a complaint must pay a fee of 1 million kyat [$1,000 USD], the Election Commission will then form a panel, inform the other party to pay a fee of 1 million kyat, and then conduct the legal procedure that may take three to four years. This is in light of the fact that the maximum fine for most election violations is only 100,000 kyat [$100 USD]. At the same time, political parties not allied with the SPDC have had to abide by the restrictive, and undemocratic election laws and directives, severely disadvantaging their election hopes.

Sub-Categories
• Abuse of advance votes
• Manipulation of results (counting and tabulation)
• Manipulation of the voters list
• Violations of election laws
• Manipulation of election laws
• Vote buying
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