Myanmar Political Party RejectsThe Planned Transition Of Election System Proposed By Military Regime

JAKARTA - The National League for Democracy (NLD) and ethnic political parties that won seats in the 2020 general election say they oppose the proportional representation system (PR) proposed by Myanmar's military regime, which seized power in a coup last month.

The military-appointed General Election Commission (UEC) has asked political parties to provide their input on ways to replace the First Past the Post System (FPTP) with a PR system, citing calls to turn to PR at meetings with political parties, which the parties have boycotted. major parties, including the NLD.

A total of 51 Myanmar political parties including representatives of the USDP military, its allies, and ethnic parties attended the meeting with the military-appointed UEC. Meanwhile, 38 major parties including the NLD and SNLD boycotted the meeting.

“People are not ready to use PR. As long as the Myanmar military is in Parliament and the Constitution remains unchanged, we do not support a switch to PR", said NLD Central Executive Committee member Khin San Hlaing, who won more than 83 percent of the votes in the 2020 elections.

The major party based in Shan State, the Shan National League for Democracy (SNLD), which won 15 seats in the Unity Parliament and 27 seats in the Shan State Parliament, said it would not respond to UEC's request for input on PR.

"We don't attend the UEC meetings because we don't recognize the military council. And we have no reason to reply to their PR proposal”, said SNLD Secretary-General Sai Leik.

The Ta'ang National Party (TNP), a party popular among the Ta'ang ethnicity, said it would not accept PR, although it had not yet accepted UEC's invitation to submit input on the PR system.

"The Public Relations system is not suitable in ethnic areas. There are many illiterate voters in Myanmar. If homework is to be practiced, it is important that the right choices are made. Because they can't even read their names, it could be a lot wrong”, said TNP chairman Aik Mone.

There are more than 20 democracies that have PR systems around the world, but systems vary from one country to another.

In FPTP which is practiced in Myanmar, the candidate who gets the most votes is the elected member of parliament. Under PR, parties receive Parliament seats in proportion to the percentage of votes they win in an election.

Although PR can prevent the one-party authoritarianism allowed by FPTP, it has its own drawbacks, such as a negative impact on the representation of ethnic-based political parties in the House of Representatives (DPR) as DPR seats are divided according to the percentage of total votes.

Myanmar's military holds 25 percent of the seats in the national and sub-national legislatures under the 2008 constitution, and only 75 percent are elected. Political analysts say democratic forces will lose power in Myanmar's Parliament under PR because around 30 political parties from around 90 political parties in Myanmar are believed to be military allies.

“Initially they (military) owned 25 percent. If PR is practiced, for example, the Solidarity and United Development Party (USDP), because of the support of the military and military sympathizers, can win the second-largest number of seats after the NLD. Even if people do not vote for the party, that party will still have a seat in Parliament because of the percentage of votes it won in the election. And homework is very complicated. There are problems even in the current (FPTP) system. I see (the plan to turn to PR) as a political hoax", said an analyst who declined to be identified.