Aung San Suu Kyi’s Favorite When Myanmar Votes



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“Mother Suu” is the big favorite in Sunday’s elections in Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands of people have been denied the right to vote in an election that a human rights organization condemned as “apartheid elections.”

Aung San Suu Kyi voted in early October.Image: Aung Shine Oo / AP / TT

From early in the morning, the queues for polling stations in Myanmar are long. The favorite in the elections is the NLD of former Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Now she has a more disgraced image internationally, she is criticized for treating the Rohingya minority in the country, but many still see her within the country’s borders as a hero.

She is often called “mother Suu” and in a recent opinion poll, 79 percent of those surveyed believe she is the most trustworthy person in the country.

Five years ago, Suu Kyi’s NLD (National Alliance for Democracy) party won a landslide victory, but the Constitution forced him to share power with the military. In the lead up to these elections, Suu has urged residents to defy fear of the coronavirus and go to the polls.

– Each individual voter writes their own history, the history of this election and the history of our country, he says in a speech on Facebook.

Election observers, however, see several problems with Sunday’s election and its legitimacy is questioned for several reasons.

More than 730,000 Rohingya fled the country in 2017 during military operations against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state. Myanmar is on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for deadly violence, but according to Myanmar, the army acted against armed groups in the region.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya in Rakhine have never obtained citizenship and therefore cannot vote.

– This is an apartheid election, says the human rights organization Burma Campaign UK, adding that the election is “less free and fair than the previous one.”

Tensions between the army and the government are also high and more than a million people in Myanmar live in areas where elections have been canceled due to unrest.

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Minoritetsbefolkningen Rohingya

The Rohingya Muslim ethnic group has lived in Rakhine State in western Myanmar for generations. Before 1962, the Rohingya people were recognized as one of the country’s ethnic minorities, but today the ethnic group is not classified as a citizen. The Rohingya are sometimes described as the most persecuted ethnic group in the world and a stateless people.

For decades, there has been a conflict between the Muslims and the Buddhist majority in Myanmar. Since the country’s independence in 1948, an estimated 1.5 million Rohingya have been forced from their homes due to persecution.

A UN report from September 2018 accused Myanmar’s army chief of “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.” The authors demanded that he be brought to justice and also accused the government of Aung San Suu Kyi of contributing to the crimes by failing to act against hatred and incitement against the Rohingya.

The Rohingya are also found in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Malaysia.

Sources: Burma Swedish Committee, Arakan Rohingya National Organization (Arno), al-Jazeera, Civil Rights Defenders, UI / Country Guide

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