Clarification & demonstration of MEVM: Union Election Commission meets political parties

The Union Election Commission met political parties to clarify and demonstrate test voting in regard with Myanmar Electronic Voting Machine (MEVM) at the Yangon Region Government Office on Tuesday.

At the event, UEC Chairman U Thein Soe said that  the UEC has already met the previous parties for 4 times and agreed to practice the Closed List-PR that is simple and suitable with Myanmar in upcoming Hluttaw elections.

Preparations are being made to amend and enact relevant Hluttaw law and bylaws that are in conformity with Proportional representation (PR) system. There are 50 parties that applied for re-registration as political parties in line with promulgated political parties registration law and bylaws, 14 parties that applied for establishing new parties, altogether 64 parties.

The 40 political parties that did not apply for re-registration in accordance with the law, have become automatically invalid as political parties according to Article 25 of the Political Parties Registration Law.

He added that applying of electronic voting machine has been conducted to prevent fraud voting, to be fast and easy in casting votes, ensuring accurate voting results in a short period, to have transparency, no rejection and to reduce the cost of printing ballots.

He pointed out that political parties represent the people and they are essential organizations that must lead for the interests of their regions, their ethnic groups and the country. In the elections that will be held with the PR system, the political parties will receive representatives in proportion depending on their ability to organize and the votes they will receive.

So, the ethnic parties will participate in the legislative and administrative sectors according to their regions and their ethnic groups and interests of the people.

Political parties are urged to make endeavours to become the ones that can stand correctly for the people and the state in implementing a genuine, disciplined-flourishing multi-party democratic system in line with the Constitution.

After that, Deputy Director General of the UEC office reported on MEVM through PowerPoint presentation and representatives of political parties cast votes practically by using MEVM.

66 officers of the Union Election Commission and Yangon region election commission branch offices, 124 representative of 35 political parties, 66 local and international media, totalling 256 attended the event.