Myanmar Second Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Union Parliament) elected U Htin Kyaw as ninth President of Myanmar, U Myint Swe as the first vice President and U Henry Van Htee Yu as second vice President.
By the comparison of election result, U Htin Kyaw won 360 (55%) of 652 total vote cast, U Myint Swe took 213 (33%) and U Henry Van Htee Yu received 97 (12%) respectively.
U Htin Kyaw and U Henry Van Htee Yu were nominated by National League for Democracy (NLD) party, the major winner of the previous general election 2015 and U Myin Swe was nominated by military-appointed MPs of the Assembly of the Union.
From February 29 to March 1, Union Election Commission (UEC) held a nationwide post election conference in Park Royal Hotel, Yangon. The conference aimed to collect the recommendations of election observers, stakeholders’ experiences, lesson learn and suggestions, and put them into the next term strategic plan of UEC. Many of the stakeholders, UEC, Political Parties, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Media and the International Communities, had participated to the conference. By the agenda, there were four sections of multi-stakeholder meeting and twenty sections of five groups of participants in two days. Almost all of the domestic and international election observation groups had attended and submitted their key recommendations sharing their interesting experiences. The Carter Center and Asian Network For Free Elections (ANFREL) were participated as the panel speakers of international election observer groups.
By the official invitation from UEC, Election Education and Observation Partners (EEOP) and its member organization New Myanmar Foundation (NMF) had attended and submitted the Key Recommendations to the conference. EEOP distributed the recommendations to the participants and actively discussed about the given sections. The following is the submitted recommendations by EEOP (Currently available in Myanmar language only);
Myanmar’s historic election was successfully held in November 8, 2015 and it was peaceful in most of the areas or constituencies. Over 1,500 observers from Election Education and Observation Partners (EEOP) had monitored the polling stations of deployed areas. Over three hundred EEOP observers reported their findings by telephone at three different times during the election day. Based on the reports aggregated reports, EEOP held a press release for the preliminary statement on polling and counting in November 9, 2015. There are two languages available for these reports; English and Myanmar (Burmese). These reports are publicly available to get from our website as the following links;
We are warmly welcome and appreciate that you all commend and redistribute these reports to any other stakeholders. The final report of EEOP will be released in December, 2015 and it will be sent to Union Election Commission (UEC) and other stakeholders.
EEOP have held press conference and released EEOP Pre-Election Statement together with Coordinator Survey, Assessment of the Electoral Environment By EEOP Coordinators and LTOs (November 5, 2015), and Pre-Election Voter Survey, EEOP Pre-Election Voter Perception Survey (November 5, 2015). We would like to distribute these reports to Union Election Commissions (UEC), the public, CSOs and, as well as, the international and domestic communities.
Press Conference for EEOP Pre-Election Statement and Survey Reports
The media asked several questions in the conference including as the following;
Q: Where will EEOP send these reports to and will you do any complain based on the results of the reports?
Ans: EEOP will send these reports to all of the stakeholders, such as, the Union Election Commission (UEC), the political parties, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), media, international and domestic observation organizations, as well as the public. These reports are intended with the purposes of having the better elections in the future and whether the election can meet the requirements of democratic standards. We will not complain the results of the reports to any organization.
Q: Are the observers from EEOP neutral or non-partisan?
Ans: Yes, we follow the international norms and obligations to become the members of EEOP.
Q: Does EEOP have enough professional and experts in the team?
Ans: Yes, luckily, the leading members of EEOP had both regional and international experiences in election observations. Moreover, all of the volunteer observers were trained and critically selected by the evaluations of the expert team. We only accepted those who had the commitments for their communities and willing to contribute their efforts throughout the process.
There are two languages available for these reports; English and Myanmar (Burmese). These reports are publicly available to get from our website as the following links;
Members of Election Education and Observation Partners (EEOP) are using ELMO, which means ELection MOnitoring, as the Election Observation Standard Database and Tool for EEOP, and this is the first time for ELMO in Myanmar.
ELMO, (http://getelmo.org/), is The Carter Center’s (http://www.cartercenter.org) open-source ELection MOnitoring data collection and reporting system, built specifically with election monitoring in mind. Equipped with ELMO, observers can submit evaluations of a process – via tablets (utilizing Open Data Kit), SMS, or directly online – in real-time to mission headquarters. ELMO’s reporting system organizes observer findings, and is relied upon by The Carter Center missions around the globe to analyze data and to assess elections as well as broader political processes. (To read more about ELMO, visit to http://getelmo.org/about/)
ELMO is not only a system optimized for election observations but also for other human-rights related observations. So that, EEOP looks forward to the long-term future observations with ELMO as the standard database system.
Moreover, Asia Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) has been providing Election Observation Training and knowledge of observation techniques to the member organizations of EEOP and now it became ELMO’s first international partner by signing on March 13, 2015, agreed to actively collaborate on ELMO. EEOP admires the ELMO partnership for both and expects to use it widely by civil society organizations, especially for Myanmar domestic observers.
New Myanmar Foundation (NMF), one of the member organizations of EEOP, will participate in localizing ELMO for Myanmar (Burmese) language after 2015. Members of EEOP are invited to get involved in ELMO community. We are thankful to ELMO team and The Carter Center!
Members of Election Education and Observation Partners (EEOP) from thirteen regions and states in Myanmar visited to the office of Union Election Commission (UEC) and had met with the chairman, members, secretariats and responsible persons of UEC in UEC office’s meeting room, Nay Pyi Taw, 14th July 2015.
EEOP’s Meeting with UEC in Nay Pyi Taw
During the meeting with UEC, the representatives of EEOP member organizations introduced about themselves and their organizations. After that, the chairman said and explained about Elections in Myanmar, Voter Education based on the history of Elections (2010 and 2012), legal framework, voter registration process and voter list, UEC’s voter education programs, transparency of advanced vote and the role of the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) for election and voter education.
After that, EEOP member CSOs organizations revealed the difficulties of voters in rural and conflict zones, the communication and transportation problems and the difficulties for providing voter education by CSOs. EEOP members also asked about the procedures and future plan of Election Commissions, including the budget to display voter list, number of available forms to request, especially for Ward/Village level Election Sub-commissions, and the preparation for the voters far from polling stations.
They also asked about the code of conduct and the regulations of the observers; especially for the equipment of the observers cannot be taken into the polling station according to the regulations announced in 6/2015 by UEC, so that it is impossible to get the evidences in the polling stations for the observers, whilst the regulation stated that to have the evidences which should come along with the findings of the observers as much as possible. Moreover, they asked for how to monitor the counting process after voting and the exact definition of the polling station.
The chairman and members of UEC discussed, explained and suggested how to solve the difficulties revealed by CSOs. For Election Observation, code of conduct and the regulation, UEC said that it would be possible to take the evidence, e.g; photo, as long as the secrecy of voting was not encountered and t would be possible to monitor the counting process. The chairman and members of UEC answered the further questions by CSOs and successfully finished the courtesy meeting.
Members of EEOP in a meeting with ANFREL for their “Empoering CSOs and media in Myanmar” program.
After the courtesy visit to Union Election Commission (UEC) in Nay Pyi Taw, members of EEOP has been taking the several nation-wide meetings. In 16th of July, we held a coordination meeting with Asia Network for Free Election (ANFREL) to continue Master trainings and TOT trainings in respective regions for their “Empowering CSOs and Media in Myanmar” program.
Durning meantime, EEOP is participating in the coordination meeting among the Election Monitoring organizations organized by NPA until 17th July.
