USDP Wins in Arakan's Maungdaw After Closed-Door Vote Tally

Maungdaw: The Burmese regime-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party has won all parliamentary seats in Maungdaw Township in western Burma's Arakan State, reportedly after a closed-door tally of the votes in Sunday's election, the first nationwide election in two decades.

An organizer of the National Democratic Party for Development, the NDPD, the main rival of the USDP in the township, told Narinjara that the USDP won the election by a landslide in the township after using fraudulent and forceful means to gain an overwhelming number of votes that were tallied in a closed-door process at the township election commission office.

"The USDP has won the election in Maungdaw but not in a fair and competitive way. They have used fraudulent and forceful ways to sweep away overwhelming votes in the election," said the NDPD member on condition of anonymity.

"No member of the political parties except the USDP's candidate U Aung Zaw Win was allowed to witness the final tallying of votes in the township election commission's office on 7 and 8 November," he added.

He said that most of the ballots supporting the USDP were found to have similar ink color and handwriting, and many of the ballots that supported other parties were found to be intentionally defaced in order to be rejected for having writing over them or two many tick marks.

According to the Election Commission, there are 257,646 eligible voters and four political parties - the Union Solidarity and Development Party, the National Democratic Party for Development, the National Unity Party, and the National Development and Peace Party - that competed for five parliamentary seats in Maungdaw Township.

The election result was issued to political parties on 9 November, 2010, and the results as issued by the township election commission are as follows:

People's Parliament

SL	Name of Candidate	Name of Party	Number of Votes
1	U Aung Zaw Win (a) Zakir Ahmed	USDP	137,695
2	U Nurul Haque	NDPD	60,582
3	U Kyaw Aye	NUP	5,114

Nationalities Parliament (7)

SL	Name of Candidate	Name of Party	Number of Votes
1	U Htay Win (a) U Zayad Rahman	USDP	71,903
2	U Soe Win	NDPD	38,773
3	U Ba Thein	NUP	2,023

Nationalities Parliament (8)

SL	Name of Candidate	Name of Party	Number of Votes
1	U Maung Tha Khin	USDP	63,801
2	U Toyubbadin	NDPD	31,156
3	U Sayadul Haque	NUP	1,413

State Parliament (1)

SL	Name of Candidate	Name of Party	Number of Votes
1	U Aung Myo Win (a) U Zhangir	USDP	69,972
2	U Khin Maung Myint (a) Annayat Ullah	NDPD	37,982
3	U Oo Tun Maung	NUP	1,991

State Parliament (2)

SL	Name of Candidate	Name of Party	Number of Votes
1	U Mya Aung	USDP	63,949
2	U Shekha Ali (a) U Saw Min	NDPD	31,780
3	U Chit Tun Aung	NUP	2,496
4	U Omar Faisal	NDPP	700

Source:http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=2801