Burma poll must be judged on merit: election expert

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/stories/201007/s2967021.htm


Burma poll must be judged on merit: election expert
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Updated July 28, 2010 20:35:50

One of Australia's most experienced international election officials has cautioned those who might try to compromise on what constitutes a free and fair poll in Burma.

Some South East Asian leaders have refused to define what a free and fair election in Burma would look like, suggesting that another standard might be defined as what the people want. But Michael Maley
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Michael Maley, special adviser electoral reform and international services, Australian Electoral Commission; Morten Pederson, Centre for International Governance and Justice, Australian National University; Zaw Naing Wynn, Burma activist; Trevor Wilson, former Australian Ambassador to Burma, visiting fellow, Australian National University.


MOTTRAM: It is difficult to find anyone who believes Burma's junta intends to hold a free and fair election, so compromised is the process, and the junta itself, even before a polling date is announced. Still there are calls on Burma to hold a free and fair poll, not least from the country's neighbours in ASEAN. At the same time though, individual South East Asian leaders have shied away from defining what constitutes free and fair. For example, Indonesia's Foreign minister Marty Natalagawa says it could in part depend on what the Burmese people think. Others flatly reject any attempt to manipulate what constitutes free and fair. Michael Maley is special adviser to the Australian Electoral Commission, and a man with 28 years experience in United Nations missions as an election administrator around the world.

MALEY: You sometimes hear election observers move away from the terminology of free and fair. They want to talk about elections that broadly reflect the will of the people. How do they know when they say this? None of us are mind readers, we are not engaged in election processes in an exercise in mental telepathy.




MOTTRAM: Speaking at a forum at the Australian National University on Burma's elections, Michael Maley outlined a list of tests for a free and fair poll, among them the need for impartial administration of the vote, transparency, secret voting, no vote buying or multiple voting, an absence of intimidation and the ability to count ballots accurately. But what happens when an election clearly isn't perfect but neither is it the worst poll ever run? Michael Maley says where some argue any election is better than none, he takes a different view, and he uses a religious analogy to make the point.

MALEY: A crooked election sold as a valid exercise is a blasphemy. It's like saying the Lord's Prayer backwards. It's not an exercise in religion it's an exercise in contempt for religion.

MOTTRAM: And there is every prospect that that description will fit Burma's election. But while the international community will face the question of how to respond on the issue of the running of the election itself, it will also face a new reality in Burma. Hence the conference title, If neither free nor fair, then what?

Morten Pederson has worked on Burma for the International Crisis Group, the UN and the World Bank and is currently with the Centre for International Governance and Justice at the Australian National University. He says looking at the election from a democratic point of view, the new system is being developed to limit change. But there will still be change, generational change, a new government looking to establish its legitimacy and a new central parliament and 14 new regional Parliaments.

PEDERSEN: Now every time I bring these things up people always say, well but the military's going to stop all that. And there's no doubt that they have an interest in countering many of these potential openings. But the question is how far they are prepared to go in denying every democratic seed while claiming to be a democracy of sorts.

MOTTRAM: He says the new parties that have formed are right to engage with the process, despite the obvious flaws.

For many Burmese exiles though, the prospect of jettisoning the fight to restore the landslide 1990 election victory of the National League for Democracy, the NLD -- which was never recognised by the generals -- is a step too far.

Zaw Naing Wynn, an ethnic Wa formerly from Shan state came to Australia in 1988.

ZAW NAING WYNN: The election is to legalise the militarisation of politics. We have seen a good example recently in Thailand. To elaborate further, I just want to ask this question: why do we need another election right now? The last time we had election in Burma was in 1990 where the NLD was given mandate to restore democracy that was taken away in 1962.

MOTTRAM: Still, veteran Burma watcher and former Australian Ambassador to Rangoon, Trevor Wilson, told the forum that whatever the results, they have to be dealt with.

WILSON: You've heard many people speaking today saying how little is likely to change and I don't disagree with that at all. But one aspect we have to deal with afterwards is the government, the government that will be elected and will have a different form.

MOTTRAM: Trevor Wilson cautions though that Burma's Constitution guarantees nothing and can take away anything, that the new institutions that will be created will be weak at best and that post election Burma could entail greater instability rather than greater certainty.