Shops were closed, Internet cafes shut and streets eerily quiet in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon yesterday as the military-ruled country voted for the first time in 20 years.
Hmwei Hmwei, 30, arrived early at one of the main city’s polling booths with her national registration card and lined up patiently to exercise her democratic right for the first time.
“I come to vote for change. I hope things will be transformed for the better,” said the student who, like all citizens aged under 38, had never voted in a general election before.
Photo: Reuters
The scene was repeated across many — but not all — parts of the ethnically diverse country of 50 million people, from the mountainous Kachin state in the north, bordering China, to the southern coast on the Andaman Sea.
Back in Yangon, local Red Cross and fire brigade officials were deployed at polling booths and barbed wire was laid out at the top of some streets, but Western diplomats said there was little sign a major election was underway.
“It’s come across as some kind of low-level parish council vote. There’s just no buzz at all,” British Ambassador Andrew Heyn said. “The lack of excitement on the ground is very striking and reflects the campaign that preceded it.”
Police Colonel Khin Maung Aye was on duty for the morning, but expressed confidence that the day would progress without hitches.
“The situation is peaceful,” he said. “I will vote cheerfully and satisfyingly ... as we are the people who have to choose the government that will be best for the country.”
Other observers were less optimistic about the ballot, which has been widely criticized as a sham to camouflage the military rule that has repressed Myanmar’s citizens since 1962.
The junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party was expected to win easily — despite its unpopularity — thanks to hefty advantages over pro-democracy parties and alleged dirty tricks in the electoral process.
Swathes of ethnic minority areas are barred from taking part at all.
Many people were expected to boycott the poll, following the lead of the National League for Democracy, the party of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, which won the last election in 1990 but was never allowed into office.
“People feel flat,” a 28-year-old civil society worker in Yangon said after casting her first vote. “Not many people want to go and vote, but they are worried that their name could be marked if they do not.”
However, a deputy returning officer at one polling station in the city, who gave her name as Thidar, said she believed people would seize a rare chance to be political — however flawed the process.
“It’s a little early now, but they will vote,” the teacher said as her booth opened. “People have to go to the markets and prepare for their meals ... They will come later.”
By mid-afternoon, however, very few people were out on the rundown streets, where decades of neglect and economic mismanagement are clear from the crumbling infrastructure and poverty of the jaded citizens.
“In the 1990 election, we were very happy and active with campaigning and singing and all the shops were open,” said a man in his 50s who asked not to be named. “Today is very quiet. I don’t know why.”
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