Myanmar drops ‘election delay’

YANGON: Myanmar election authorities on Tuesday confirmed that landmark polls would go ahead on November 8 in a national broadcast, after Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition rejected official suggestions that the vote be postponed because of flooding.
In an announcement read out on state media the Union Election Commission said it had decided to go ahead as planned with elections, after floating the idea of a delay at a meeting with major parties in the capital Napyidaw.
"Following a review of the possible pros and cons of postponing the election date, the commission’s decision is that the general elections will be held on November 8 2015, as previously stated," said an announcement read out on state media.
News of the meeting had earlier sent ripples of alarm through the nation where election fever is in full swing just weeks ahead of a vote seen as a crucial test of the country’s emergence from junta rule.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which is forecast to make major gains in the polls, earlier said it was against any attempt to stall the first nationwide vote it has contested in a quarter century. Win Htein, a spokesman for the NLD, said the party was alone in opposing the postponement. Election rules mean the authorities can suspend voting in constituencies affected by natural disaster or unrest.
Myanmar is still recovering from massive floods in recent months that damaged infrastructure across the country and displaced 1.6 million people, but they were not previously thought to threaten the date of the polls.
Officials earlier on Tuesday said they had cancelled voting in swathes of northern Shan and Kachin states bordering China because of ongoing fighting with ethnic rebels.
"Some village areas have security restrictions and we have security concerns about those. Others are in the control of Kachin (rebels) where we are not capable of holding elections," Tun Aung Khaing, a senior election official in Kachin State, told AFP.
That move had been anticipated and mainly affects areas battered by war or beyond the government’s writ, in a country where several ethnic minority armies still resist state control.