Voters in Magwe region’s Pakokku township and Hpakant in Kachin state grew restive on Sunday over fears that their votes would not be counted because of ballot disputes.   

The dispute in Magwe started after poll workers handed out ballots for the state parliament instead of the Pyithu Hluttaw to voters at polling station No (8) in Pakokku’s ward 15.

As a result of the confusion, the ballots were put into the wrong boxes, according to Wunna Aung of the National League for Democracy (NLD) Youth Team in Pakkoku. This led to calls from a member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to invalidate the votes, he added.

Local residents angered over the prospect of losing their votes started gathering outside the polling station at around 1pm. About 200-300 people joined the protest, which continued until around 6pm.

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The disputed ballot boxes were taken by police to Pakkoku’s election sub-commission office, where a negotiation team and political parties are still discussing the matter, he said.

Myanmar Now reached out to the Pakkoku township election sub-commission for comment, but did not receive a response.

According to San Nyunt Aung, the USDP’s secretary for Magwe region, similar problems also occurred in other townships.

“This isn’t just one town—it also happened in Magwe and Natmauk. How do you solve these problems?  We sent the UEC an official report, but that’s about all we can do,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Hpakant, angry voters rallied outside the polling station at the Mashi Kahtaung middle school, where 338 people had been given incorrect ballots, according to Tin Wai, the leader of the NLD victory team in Hpakant.

In this case, the township conflict negotiation team met to resolve the dispute and decided to scrap the 338 votes and allow voters to cast their ballots again, he said.

“It’s all solved now. The poll workers did not have enough training and so this happened. Everyone’s agreed that the 338 voters will get to vote again,” he said.

Another irregularity reported in this case was the involvement of one of the contesting parties in distributing the ballots. 

However, La Aung, a candidate for the Kachin State People’s Party (KSPP), said it was unlikely that representatives from his party handed out the wrong ballots.

“Our representatives can’t give out ballots. Only the head of the polling station can do that. I think this happened because they weren’t given proper training due to Covid,” he said.

Mashi Kahtaung ward is the constituency of Da Shi La Zai, Kachin state’s minister of natural resources and environmental conservation.

Da Shi La Zai is representing the NLD in the 2020 election, contesting against La Zun Htoi Shao from the KSPP, Mya Ohn from the USDP, and Zaw Tun from the Tai-Leng Nationalities Development Party (TNDP).

Hpakant has 160,823 eligible voters.