The ruling National League for Democracy will continue to oppose the presence of polling stations and advanced votes by the Tatmadaw, said Nyan Win, the CEC member of the NLD, at a press conference after the two-day CEC meeting at its headquarters in Yangon on September 22. 

“We will march to the democratic country. All matters should be fair. We don’t agree on the presence of polling stations in the army. We have opposed it throughout the elections.  But our efforts did not achieve success. We will make continued demands for it as it is a legal problem,” he added. 

Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, Vice-Chair-2 of the NLD raised a question why Tatmadaw casts vote again even though it has officially got a quarter of seats in parliament. We remonstrated about the army’s polling stations and advanced votes. We will say it again according to the process. The CEC members also pointed out that matter.

There were disputes over the Tatmadaw’s advanced votes in 2015 General Election and the by-election. 

Three candidates, including one from the NLD lodged a complaint to the Township Election Sub-commission about the transparency of advanced votes secured by a candidate from the Union Solidarity and Development Party at the Upper House Constituency-2 of Kachin State at the by-election held on November 3, 2018. 

The USDP candidate got more than 4,200 advanced votes while the NLD candidate who stood third secured around 800 votes. There were around 5,000 votes in the constituency. 

Mya Nandar Thin, the executive director of the New Myanmar Foundation, a civil society organization working for election monitoring and voter education said: “The compilation of eligible voters for the servicemen and their families from the battalion and units outside the constituency is different from that of those in wards, villages and townships. There should be more transparency on advanced votes in the army.”

“The reason why we are interested in the army’s advanced votes is it is difficult to get information. Any party and candidates will think that there will be fairness if we reveal it through the Union Election Commission, she continued.  

Relevant township election sub-commissions have to get the lists of eligible voters from relevant military commanders.