- News
Why Meikhtila went green – how USDP won in a traumatised city
In the sea of the National League for Democracy’s overwhelming victory in Myanmar’s Nov. 8 elections there was a small island of success for the ruling party. Meikhtila, a city in central Mandalay Region, had a sitting lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD, whose re-election perhaps had seemed assured. But at a polling station on the night of the vote, as public tabulation began, the name “Dr.Maung Thin” was repeated time and again. Victory for the former rector of Meikhtila University who ran for a Lower House seat for the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was confirmed the next day. The NLD lost three other Mandalay townships, but it was the defeat at Meikhtila – where the USDP won about two-thirds of the roughly 150,000 votes for union and local level seats – that stood out. The garrison town was the scene of large-scale communal violence between Muslims and Buddhists in 2013 that left 44 people dead and more than 10,000 displaced. The electoral success of the USDP, which had been campaigning on a nationalist platform that was endorsed by radical Ma Ba Tha monks, raised questions over whether the experience of the riots had affected voters’ behaviour.…
- Myanmar
Ruling USDP commands shy support in Myanmar’s elections
Twenty-two-year-old Lu Zaw took a day’s leave from his office job this week to join a political rally of the Union Solidarity and Development Party, but found it hard to explain his instinctive loyalty to Myanmar’s ruling party. His uncle is a senior party campaigner, recruiting new members for USDP in Yangon’s Thinganggyun Township. Lu Zaw said he was taking part in the rally, not at the behest of his uncle, but by his own volition, despite the fact that political rallies were not his favourite scene. As Myanmar prepares for historic elections on Sunday, a vote that the opposition National League for Democracy of Aung San Suu Kyi is widely expected to win, there are still many loyal to the ruling party. Led by former general Thein Sein, the USDP’s semi-civilian government has steered the Southeast Asian nation through a series of economic and political reforms since it came to power in 2011, ending half a century of military rule. “Even if the whole country supports NLD, I will vote for USDP,” said Lu Zaw. USDP rallies, with supporters decked in the party’s colour green, seem to lack the zeal and spontaneity of campaign events organized by Suu Kyi’s…
- Myanmar
As polls near, attacks in Mon State capital raise fears of communal violence
Several unexplained night-time attacks on members of different religious communities in Mawlamyine have put the Mon State capital on edge in recent weeks. Community leaders fear the attacks are attempts to foment inter-communal tensions here in the run up to Myanmar’s Nov. 8 polls. One victim, Paung Paung, a Hindu resident in his early 20s, said he and his two brothers had watched a football game at a teashop on Sept. 26 and were walking home on the city’s Strand Road when some men suddenly assaulted them. “They called us ‘Kalar sons of bitches’ and beat us. We said we are Hindus and not Muslims, but they wouldn’t listen,” he told Myanmar Now, using a Myanmar derogatory term for people of South Asian descent. He ended up with a large gash on his head that required 20 stitches. “These are not ordinary local gangs that sometimes fight on Strand Road; they seemed well-organised,” Paung Paung said. On the same night, Nyein Htwe, a 25-year-old Muslim from Yangon who was visiting family in Mawlamyine, drove past Zegyo Market with a friend when their way was blocked by a motorbike. “Then, some 20 men on 10 motorbikes attacked us from behind with…
- Myanmar
“Joining a Ma Ba Tha event is a USDP member’s right and choice”
Dr. Toe Toe Aung is the Mon State Minister for Civil Development for the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). He is contesting a seat in the state capital Mawlamyine and hopes to secure reelection in the state parliament on Nov. 8. Born in the town, he graduated from Yangon University of Medicine (2) in 1996 and worked at Mon State’s Health Department until 2010, when he was elected to the state legislature. The 2010 polls were considered rigged in favour of the USDP. In an interview with Myanmar Now reporter Phyo Thiha Cho at the party’s regional headquarters in Mawlamyine, the 45-year-old medical doctor discussed his campaign challenges and the links between the nationalist Ma Ba Tha movement and the USDP in Mon State. Question: What are the challenges for you as a USDP state minister seeking re-election on Nov. 8? Answer: I have been close touch with people in my constituency for more than four years, since the time when our party was still a civilian organisation, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (the predecessor of the USDP). I will keep working for the welfare of people, either as an MP or as a member of government.…
- Myanmar
Myanmar’s new nationalist party surges into election race
With just weeks before Myanmar’s landmark elections, a fleet of cars covered with stickers of the National Development Party carrying flag-waving party supporters and Buddhist monks crawled through the streets of Mawlamyine, Mon state’s capital. The convoy was heading to the Strand Hotel on the banks of the Thanlwin River. Most party faithful were wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the NDP’s symbol – a golden dancing peacock – some of the shirts also bore the slogan ‘racial protection law has come into effect!’ The NDP only became an official political party in early July 2015, but the Buddhist nationalist party has surged into contention in Myanmar politics, ranking fourth among political parties in terms of both funding and numbers of candidates fielded for the Nov.8 poll. On the lawn of the Strand Hotel, some 60 monks were assembled, many from the Maha Myaing Monastery and Myazedi (Yekyaung) Monastery, believed to be the cradle of the radical Buddhist group Ma Ba Tha. Behind them gathered hundreds more people, listening intently to the speakers. “Around the world, every country, its people and religions, focus on their own interest. So it is out of the question that we do not safeguard and protect…
