PAKOKKU: With undercover police lurking nearby, breakaway opposition leader Than Nyein pleaded in vain with local democracy activists to contest army-ruled Myanmar`s first election in 20 years.
Standing up to the junta is fraught with risk, and with democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi supporting a boycott, a splintered opposition is struggling to find enough people willing to stand for parliament in the November 7 vote.
"If we want to see change sooner, we have to build confidence between (the ruling generals) and us," said Than Nyein, chairman of the National Democratic Force (NDF), formed by ex-members of Suu Kyi`s now-defunct party.
"We have to see them and talk," he told a group of supporters of Suu Kyi, who has said she would "never accept" her party registering for the upcoming vote because the election laws were "unjust".
Than Nyein failed to persuade his audience, who vowed to stay loyal to the Nobel Peace laureate.
"We respect you, but we have different opinions," said Hlaing Aye, who was among those elected in 1990 under Suu Kyi`s National League for Democracy (NLD) in a landslide opposition victory that was voided by the junta.
"We would like to maintain unity within the NLD. The important thing is to keep a family spirit among us," added Hlaing Aye, chairman of the NLD branch in the town of Pakokku in central Myanmar.
Suu Kyi`s backing of a boycott has led to a split in the opposition between those who support her defiant stance and others who see the vote as the only hope for progress in the autocratic nation.
The November election has been widely condemned by activists and the West as a sham aimed at cementing army rule. One quarter of the parliamentary seats are reserved for the military whatever the outcome.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar`s independence hero General Aung San, has spent much of the past 20 years in detention and is barred from standing in the vote because she is a serving prisoner.
As a result of her party`s boycott, it has been abolished by the junta.
Adding to the reborn opposition`s woes, it faces time constraints, intimidation and financial challenges -- candidates must pay a fee of about 500 dollars, the equivalent of several months` wages for most people.
Than Nyein said the NDF had so far recruited about 100 candidates, though 498 seats are available in the two-chamber national parliament, not to mention the places on offer in planned regional legislatures.
"Our priority is to nominate candidates," Than Nyein told AFP during a five-day trip around the country to search for people willing to stand, with plain-clothes police following close behind.
It has been more than two years since Myanmar`s junta first announced plans to hold elections sometime in 2010, but the regime only gave the NDF permission to participate last month.
After finally announcing the date of the polls, the authorities gave parties little more than two weeks to register candidates by August 30.
So far 42 parties have been given permission to run, but many constituencies are expected to be won uncontested by the junta`s main proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).
"The opposition parties are facing serious barriers at the moment," said a Western diplomat in Yangon who did not want to be named.
"You`ve got a combination of financial and time constraints as well as unfair pressure. They`re also up against the juggernaut of the USDP, which is a government party with unlimited financing as far as we can make out."
The USDP, headed by Prime Minister Thein Sein, has its roots in the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a pro-junta organisation with up to 27 million members, many of them coerced to join, according to rights groups.
At least one opposition party, The Democratic Party (Myanmar), has complained of intimidation of its members by security personnel, as well as financial difficulties.
"The election commission law has so many restrictions," said senior party member Than Than Nu, whose father was Myanmar`s first prime minister after the country was liberated from British rule in 1948.
"Because the security officials pressure the people, they dare not come forward to stand," she told AFP, adding that her party expects to put forward about 100 candidates, though it had hoped for 1,000.
Under strict rules, members of all parties are banned from marching, waving flags and chanting to garner support. They must apply one week in advance for permission to gather and deliver speeches outside their offices.
While few expect the NDF, or any other party, to come close to matching the NLD`s 1990 landslide victory, there are signs that the party is managing to win over some Suu Kyi supporters.
Htun Sein, a 97-year-old retired military captain who fought the British alongside the Nobel Peace laureate`s father, is among those planning to stand as a parliamentary candidate under the NDF.
"I have been striving for democracy in Myanmar for more than 20 years," he said at the opening of the party`s office in Mandalay last week.
"I joined the NDF because we haven`t achieved anything lately."
BDST: 1055 HRS, August 25, 2010
