Political parties struggle to attract members
July 26 - August 1, 2010
POLITICAL parties this month began submitting membership lists to the Union Election Commission, as mandated under the Political Parties Registration Law released in March.
While all parties surveyed by The Myanmar Times said they had encountered few difficulties meeting membership requirements, most said there was a widespread reluctance to become involved in the 2010 election outside of voting.
The election laws state that parties have 90 days from when they are formally registered to submit a list of 1000 members to the Union Election Commission. Parties planning to contest constituencies in a single State or Regional Hluttaw are required to show evidence of only 500 members.
U Thu Wai, chairman of the Democratic Party (Myanmar), which was registered on May 20, said the party already had the list of members “in our hand” – well ahead of the 90-day deadline.
“We have prepared more than 1000 members so that if some are rejected there won’t be any problems,” he said earlier this month.
Those excluded from being a member of a political party include members of a religious order, civil services personnel, foreigners and convicts.
“Convict means a person serving a prison term under a sentence passed by any Court. The said expression also includes a person who is serving a prison term pending appeal or revision against the sentence of imprisonment of the relevant Court,” according to article 2(l) of the Political Parties Registration Law.
Members must also be at least 18 years of age and meet citizenship requirements.
U Thu Wai said many people were still wary of joining political parties but the high profile of the Democratic Party’s senior members, who include the daughters of former prime ministers and deputy prime minister from the post-WWII era, had encouraged support.
“People are afraid to join parties. For us it is no problem but for other [parties] it might be difficult,” he said.
State media announced last week that the Rakhine State National Force of Myanmar submitted its member list to the commission on July 16, while the Lahu National Development Party did so on July 20.
Earlier in July, the Rakhine State-based Mro or Khami National Solidarity Organisation and the National Unity Party – which both took part in the 1990 election and were among the first to be approved for this year’s poll – also submitted their member lists.
The election commission began approving the registration of newly formed parties in mid-May. Those approved the earliest, such as the Pa-O National Organisation, still have until the middle of August to submit their member lists.
But some groups say they will submit ahead of the deadline to avoid any complications.
“We will go to Nay Pyi Taw to submit the member list at the end of July,” U Aye Lwin, the chairman of the Union of Myanmar Federation of National Politics, said on July 21. “We have prepared a list of more than 1000 members from various parts of Myanmar.”
U Aye Lwin said the 88 Generation Student Youths (Union of Myanmar), headed by his brother U Ye Tun, would submit their member list at the same time.
“We’ve both been in politics for a long time, and since we were released from prison in 2005 we’ve been organising and preparing our parties,” he said.
Union Democratic Party Central Executive Committee member U Win Sein told The Myanmar Times the party would “easily” meet membership requirements.
The UDP was formed on April 1 following the combining of two political groups – U Phyo Min Thein’s Public Democracy Party and the Union Democracy Alliance Party headed by U Shwe Ohn – and was officially registered on May 28.
“It will be easy [to get members] because we are actually an alliance of two parties, and both U Phyo Min Thein and U Shwe Ohn have brought their supporters to the UDP,” U Win Sein said.
He said the party is collecting K200 from each member it signs up because it believes many people will have difficulty paying a larger sum.
“People are afraid of politics and political parties and also the economic situation is not good, so we need to be flexible. When we started the party we never planned to get funding from members,” he said.
“If we wanted to make it free to become a member, it would be no problem because it’s just a small amount of money. But we decided to charge a token amount because we want to have members who are dedicated.”
