YANGON, Nov 6 (NNN-MNA) – Myanmar’s Union Election Commission (UEC) and political parties, held discussions on the application of proportional representation (PR) system, in the next general elections, state media reported yesterday.
Representatives from 53 out of some 90 political parties in total, and 20 civilian representatives, took part in the discussions expected to last three days.
Myanmar practices the First Past the Post (FPTP) system, which lets the winning lawmaker from a constituency in the elections, take a seat to represent the region in parliament.
The proposal to replace the FPTP system with the PR system, which gives parliament seats to parties based on the percentage of votes they win in the elections, was rejected in 2014.
UEC head, U Thein Soe, said yesterday that, the practice of PR system could bring opportunities to minority parties, ethnic parties, women and individual representatives.
The election commission, in July this year, cancelled the results of the previous multiparty general elections, held in Nov last year, after the military alleged that there was voting fraud and demanded investigation.
The National League for Democracy won a majority of seats in both houses of the Union Parliament in the elections.
A state of emergency was declared in Myanmar on Feb 1 this year, and the state power was transferred to Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing. The UEC was re-formed, to take steps to review the process of elections in early Feb.– NNN-MNA