Opposition Parties Unite Over Calls for Election Investigations, Electoral Reforms

A chorus of political parties are decrying the conduct of the June 5 commune election, with the Candlelight Party calling for reforms to the NEC to ensure a smoother process. The Sunday election saw the ruling CPP sweep all but four commune chief positions across the country, according to preliminary results from the election body.

Expectations were high that the Candlelight Party would challenge the CPP’s hold on local-level positions but that has so far failed to materialize. Small parties have come out over the last two days and called out the intimidation of candidates, alleged election day irregularities and the NEC’s unwillingness to take their complaints seriously. The Grassroots Democratic Party and Candlelight held separate press conferences on Tuesday and Monday, respectively.

Yang Saing Koma, vice president of the GDP, said the election was the “worst” in recent times, pointing to intimidation of their candidates and the presence of local authorities at polling centers and lack of access to the 1102 forms that registers the tallies for each station. The party, which was formed in 2015, was collating all these alleged irregularities and wanted other parties to join together to push the NEC to address the election violations, he said.

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