A total of 68 out of 87 political parties competing in the 2020 general election missed their chances to represent in constituencies, said Hla Thein, Chair of Union Election Commission (UEC) during a press briefing with state media.

The interview was reported in a state owned newspaper issued on November 17.

“Some parties said candidates from 19 parties won candidacy in this election due to COVID-19 pandemic period. I didn’t agree with that as no pandemic was broken out in the 2015 general election,” he said.

He added that 69 out of 91 political parties that competed in the 2015 general election lost their candidacy.

“They lost in the 2020 general election not COVID-19 pandemic but their poor election campaign,” he said.

He continued that the UEC is criticized by some parties although they held the election in line with five standardizations.

“We saw in journals about the criticism from some parties that they will win the election if we are impartial,” he said.

The UEC accepted it and they can criticize the commission freely. Only people can decide the truth, he said.

One or more leaders of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) said before the election that they will win the election if the UEC holds a free and fair election.

At the present, the USDP didn’t accept the election result as it is not free and fair and they demanded the UEC to re-hold the election with the army cooperation.

Although the Daily Eleven contacted the leaders of the USDP to ask for their view about what the chair of the UEC said about the election, they didn’t reply.

David Hla Myint, Chair of the United Nationalities Democracy Party (UNDP), who competed in Kawtmu Constituency in 2020 general election, said the situation in this election is not the same with those in previous elections as they have to face difficulty in election campaign due to COVID-19 and there is no equal opportunity between big parties and small parties.

According to an announcement made by the UEC on November 15, the current ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) won 920 seats in three parliaments making a huge difference between them and the opposition party USDP which won 71 seats in total.