POLITICAL PARTIES REGISTRATION LAW
Published: 8 March 2010
Election Commission Law in English Download or View
Main points of the law:
- Parties are subjected to the discretion of the Electoral Commission
- Parties must have at least 15 members
- Party leaders and members must be:
- a Burmese citizen,
- at least 25 years old, (members must be over 18 years old)
- not a member of a religious order,
- not a Civil Servant,
- not a member or have contact with any unlawful organisation waging war or threatening the state of the Union,
- not a violator of the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Drug Law
- not a foreigner or naturalised citizen of a foreign country
- (members cannot be serving a prison term)
- a member of only one party at a time.
- Parties must uphold peace and stability of the nation, safeguard the Constitution, not incite social upheaval, not abuse religion for political purposes, not receive money or property from government, religious organisations, foreign organisations or foreign states.
- Parties must be able to contest in at least three constituencies in general election of Pyithu Hluttaw constituency, Amyotha Hluttaw constituency, Region or State constituency.
- Parties must not directly or indirectly obtain and utilize state owned money, land, housing, building and vehicle.
- Party registration laws state that parties may spend a maximum of 10 million kyat (US $10,000) for each candidate running for a seat in parliament. The expenditure can come from either the party's funds or from a candidate's private funds.
other regulations:
- To register a website with the government, a political party must pay 600,000 kyat (US $600) to the Scrutiny and Registration Division.
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 NLD’s legal objections to the 2010 Election Laws
On behalf of the party, NLD president Aung Shwe and lawyers of Aung San Suu Kyi, Nyan Win and Kyi Win, tried to sue the chairman of the State Peace and Development Council on charges that the electoral laws were unfair and one sided on March 23rd, 2010. The major objections were:
- Act 8(k) of the Union Election Commission Law enshrines the commission with the powers of “supervising, order to supervise and guiding the political parties to conduct their businesses in accordance with the law.” This kind of authority limits the freedom of organization and discussion.
- The law states prisoners are not allowed to be members of political parties. This denies the rights of a political party and violates democratic norms.
- Act 87 of the People’s Parliament Election Law states the Election Commission, sub-commissions, election tribunal and officers of polling booths cannot be sued for their undertakings. This act can lead to an unfair election and can shelter people appointed by authorities, allowing for authorities to carry out their one-sided preferences.
- Act 91(A) of the People’s Parliament Election Law (2010) withdraws People’s Parliament Election Law 14/89 as previously set out by SLORC. In Act 91(B) (2010), it mentions that the result of the 1990 election is cancelled because it does not agree with the 2008 constitution. This is unfair. After the 1990 election the People’s Parliament was not organized, so according to Act 3 of the People’s Parliament Election Law the result of the 1990 election has not been cancelled.
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