Despite its importance, this historic exercise in local democracy has been almost fully overlooked and ignored by the media, donors, and local and international organisations. Until recently, not a single donor dollar had been allocated to support the process. No election monitoring missions were deployed and no voter education conducted. Few media articles had been devoted to the topic. Since then, a small but important initiative by one international organisation late in the process has resulted in mobilisation of a handful of local civil society organisations. But overall the level of support and interest stands in stark contrast to that for the general election of November 8, 2015.
The backdrop to the vote
These forgotten elections are for ward and village-tract administrators. On December 30, 2015, the General Administration Department (GAD) announced in the Global New Light of Myanmar that the elections would take place during January 2016. This came as no surprise, because the law stipulates that the term of ward and village-tract administrators is concurrent to that of the Union Parliament, or Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, which ended in late January. The local elections are under the purview of the GAD and not the Union Election Commission (UEC). (Courtesy of Myanmar Times)
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