Election Boycott Campaign Hots Up

A Burmese refugee living in Malaysia wears a badge bearing the National League for Democracy's (NLD) flag on a shirt with a picture of Burma's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a gathering in Kuala Lumpur in June. (Photo: Reuters)
Stickers bearing the portrait of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and urging people not to vote in the November election are appearing throughout Rangoon .

The stickers, bearing the message "It is our right to vote or not to vote in the 2010 election," are part of a boycott campaign launched by the activist movement Generation Wave. They are appearing in public places ranging from bus shelters to shopping centers.

Generation Wave launched the campaign on August 12 in various parts of Rangoon, including Dagon Myothit, Insein, Hlaing Tharyar, and Mingaladon Townships, and Bayint-Naung wholesale market, Yuzana Plaza and Dagon shopping centers.

The group's spokesman, Pyae Sone Win, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday: “The objective of our campaign is to give a message to people, especially the youth, that they have the right not to vote."

Generation Wave was formed by young activists, who secretly record and distribute anti-government music albums across Burma. It claims allegiance to no political party or movement, although its members have one thing in common, a deep respect for Suu Kyi.

The election laws prohibit Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners from participating in the election.

Suu Kyi has said the election is “absolutely unlikely” to be free and fair, and political parties will not have enough time to campaign.

In March, her National League for Democracy, decided not to register as a political party for the election, saying it would not be free and fair.

Some registered political parties are facing chicanery by the Election Commission (EC). One, the Democratic Party, has written to the EC complaining of official intimidation after the EC passed the list of the party's members to the police Special Branch. The Union Democratic Party chairman, Phyo Min Thein, has resigned, saying the election will not be free and fair.