boycott

A citizen from Pegu Division who spoke to Burma Election Tracker explained the decision to boycott.

A citizen in Kachin State told Burma Election Tracker, "I don't vote because I'm not interested and nothing will change after the election."

ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲျပီးရင္လဲဘာမွထူးျခားလာမွာမဟုတ္သလိုစိတ္၀င္စားမႈလဲမရွိသျဖင့္မဲမေပးပါ။

A citizen from Rangoon told Burma Election Tracker, "I don't vote because I mistrust this election."

ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအားအယံုအၾကည္မရွိသျဖင့္မဲမေပးပါ။

A person from Mon State said: "I heard about the election news that people were not interested about candidates. No one in my house voted. We did not also cast advance votes. We did not vote because we think this election is not fair. We stayed without voting following what Aung San Suu Kyi encouraged people to. There are not many people interested about the election and I do not have any hope from it as it is not meant to be for civilians, only for the wealth of the military government. People are angry with it."

A voter from Mon State who spoke to Burma Election Tracker said: "I heard that everyone in my village needed to vote. Parents were instructed to bring everyone from their households who are away. If not they will be fined. So, I went home to vote. I saw the polling station was opened at the school. I saw that voters did not seem to be happy. There were some people watching around the polling station. Some people went there to vote. I didn't vote. I didn't know about the USDP but I heard about the logos, Lion and Rice branch. I'm not interested in the elections. I don't have any hope."

A voter from Pegu Division who spoke to Burma Election Tracker said: "I heard about the elections and people were forced to vote for the USDP. I didn't go home to vote but my family members voted. They voted for the USDP for they were worried about coercion. My family members were persuaded and threatened by USDP members who visited my house. The USDP told my family that if they won, everything will be all right. The Chairperson of Ward Peace and Development Council also visited home and instructed my family members to vote for the USDP.

A voter from Rangoon Division who spoke to Burma Election Tracker said: "I got the news that I had to cast a vote. I called my home and I was told that the Ward Peace and Development Council was conducting a family household survey. I returned home but did not vote. When they came to my house to survey the household members, I said I would not cast a vote, but they told me I had to vote. They got my name. It was USDP members who collected the household number. I am not interested in this election. I did not cast a vote. I went to polling station just to observe.

A voter from Pegu Division who spoke to Burma Election Tracker said: "This election is to bring victory to the USDP. I did not go back home. I am not interested in election because, Aung San Suu Kyi is not participating in it. I will not vote for anyone except for Aung San Suu Kyi. The USDP and the military government, they are the same. I do not hope anything out of this election. I could not call my home on the election day."

A voter from Mon State who spoke to Burma Election Tracker said:"I first heard the news that election will be held on the 7th of November. I know that the result of this election is fully controlled by the SPDC. I did not return home to cast my vote as I disliked them and was afraid that I would be forced to vote. I was sad that people could not make their own choice when voting. My sisters called me and said that there were USDP members watching the voting process at the polling station. I was also told that the USDP was collecting advance votes.