Myanmar to accept observers for by-election

Myanmar's Union Election Commission (UEC) will allow observers from home and abroad to monitor the coming by-election to be held on April 1 next year.

According to an announcement of the UEC Thursday, people from home and abroad can apply to the commission from now up to March 15 to officially observe the planned by-election for vacant parliamentary seats in respective constituencies.

The by-election is to fill 19 vacant parliamentary seats which were left after some parliament members were appointed as government cabinet ministers, while other vacancies were left as some constituencies failed to hold the polling in the last general election in 2015.

Of the 19 vacant parliamentary seats, nine are with the House of Representatives (Lower House), three with the House of Nationalities (Upper House) and seven with the state parliaments.

According to the UEC time table, the date for overseas voters to cast vote in advance is initially set for between Nov. 15 and Dec. 15 and date for submission of names of candidates is between Nov. 28 and Dec. 7.

Campaign period is scheduled for Jan. 30 to March 30, 2017.

Election result or names of winning parliamentarians-elect will be announced within the next four days following the by-election.

Both Myanmar's current ruling party and former one have vowed to compete for all vacant seats in the by-election.

There were over 10,000 local election observers and more than 1,000 international ones in the previous 2015 general election. Endit