Political parties in a stampede to find candidates

The sudden announcement of the elections date in Burma on Friday has shaken unprepared political parties that are yet ready with candidates, to rush up to select candidates in time with the Election Commission’s deadline.

One of them is the Shan National Democratic Party (SNDP). The party is now informing all executive members in every township to quickly find eligible candidates and send their names to the headquarters because it needs to submit the list to EC within two weeks, a source said.

“We did not think that the EC would announce it immediately. So we have yet to choose candidates and we are still focusing on recruiting members,” said one of the party members.

The date for elections in Burma, announced on 13 August, is on 7 November 2010.

At present, the SNDP is busy not only to choose candidates but also to keep on recruiting members in areas where it has yet to reach to date. The SNDP plans to contest in the whole Shan State: North, South and East and will contest in the three houses of parliament.

The SNDP has to recruit its members within three months from the day it was granted permission for registration as it has to send the list of party members to the Union Election Commission (UEC) before the end of August. The party’s application was approved on 26 May. It has reportedly selected some candidates in some parts of Shan State North, South and East.

Yesterday, 15 August, the party opened its branch office in Shan State East’s Tachilek, opposite Thailand’s Mae Sai. At the same time, it has also chosen three candidates for Shan State East’s Kengtung. They are: Sai Long Kiao, chairman of Kengtung branch office, is to contest for the upper house, Sai Win to contest for the lower house and Sai Thaung Sein, office secretary, is to compete for the State legislature, according to a member in Kengtung.

“We will continue to form committees in townships bordering with Thailand,” he said.

There are so far 14 political parties that will contest in the whole Shan State, North, East and South: Kayan National Party (KNP), Shan National Democratic Party (SNDP), Taang (Palaung) National Party (TNP), Wa National Unity Party (WNUP), Wa Democratic Party (WDP), Northern Shan State Progressive Party (NSSPP), Kokang Democracy and Unity Party (KDUP), Pa-O National Organization (PNO), Inn National Development Party (INDP), Lahu National Development Party (LNDP), Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and National Unity Party (NUP), National Democratic Froce (NDF), Union Democracy Party (UDP) and Union of Myanmar Federation of National Politics (UMFNP).

Among those, the junta-backed USDP is said to be the main opponent for the SNDP.

“The USDP has more opportunities than other parties. One thing is that it has money to spend and another is having full power to order local people to comply with its order” he added.

Source:http://shanland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3147:political-parties-in-a-stampede-to-find-candidates&catid=85:politics&Itemid=266