War, not politics: Troubled election deepens tension in Myanmar's Rakhine

  • 11/12/2020
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YANGON (Reuters) - Yarzar Tun’s whole family backed Myanmar’s Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in the landslide 2015 election that swept her to power. As fighting this year in western Rakhine state crept closer to his home, he decided he would not vote for her again.Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has claimed another commanding win in a parliamentary election on Sunday, the second since the end of half a century of military rule. But in Rakhine the NLD was rejected by voters such as Yarzar Tun and his family, who backed an ethnic nationalist party instead. “When the war got worse, the MPs we elected couldn’t speak out about our difficulties,” said the 38-year-old lawyer. “People worry every day. When will the bombs fall on them?” While counting is still going on in many places, the NLD has won more than 80 percent of the seats so far announced, including in some ethnic minority areas. In Rakhine, however, the party lost most of the seats it took in 2015, a result some analysts said highlighted the deepening sense of grievance many there harbour against a central government dominated by the ethnic Bamar majority that increases the risk of further conflict. About two-thirds of the state’s population were unable to vote after the election commission shut some polling stations, citing fighting between government troops and the Arakan Army (AA) insurgent group, prompting complaints that voting was only being allowed to go ahead in areas where the NLD had more support. The election commission has denied gerrymandering and said the poll station closures were necessary for security.

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