Burma’s Muslim Candidate Defies Hardliners

Defying Buddhist extremists, a Muslim candidate has been campaigning in Burma’s Mandalay, a stronghold for Buddhist extremists, in the restive country’s historic general election due to be held later this month.

"Muslims have been suffering in Myanmar [Burma] in recent years and this pushed us to go into parliament," Khin Maung Thein told Reuters on Saturday, October 31.

Thein is one of the country’s handful Muslim candidates who are running for this month’s election that has stoked anti-Muslim sentiment over the past months.

Madalay’s sole Muslim candidate, who hails from the United National Congress (UNC), runs his campaign from a cluttered, two-story home that doubles as the family printing business.

Being the country’s second-largest city and a stronghold for Buddhist extremists, Mandalay was shunned by Muslim candidates, including National League for Democracy (NLD) members, due to sectarian threats.

Considering himself as Pathi, a Muslim group with Persian blood and a centuries-old history in Burma, Thein deems the election a chance to "restore their ethnic pride".

Being a member of UNC, an obscure little party, the Muslim candidate aims to promote his party policies like reducing the budget of the country’s military and spending it on education instead.

The notable absence of Muslims has tainted elections by anti-Muslim sentiment fuelled by Buddhist nationalist politicians and radical monks.

In an “opaque” and “discriminatory” process, more than 100 Muslim candidates have been disqualified by the country’s election commission, according to the US State Department.

In Western Burma, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, about 650,000 people, were denied their voting rights after the government invalidated their identity cards.

Moreover, the NLD and Burma's ruling party have declined to field Muslim candidates for polls, bowing to hardliners’ threats.

Meanwhile, experts warned that excluding Muslims as both candidates and voters would reignite religious unrest and embolden Buddhist radicals.

Fear And Uncertainty

In an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, Mandalay lone Muslim candidate can only campaign in the city’s mosques instead of streets to avoid harassment by Ma Ba Tha monks.

"I can't show up openly and hold campaign rallies," Thein said.

In September, Burma hardline Buddhist monks have claimed “victory” against the country’s religious Muslim community, after passing controversial anti-Muslim laws and stripping voting rights from Rohingya Muslims.

Earlier in September, President Thein Sein signed last week the Monogamy Bill to prohibit the practice of taking more than one wife, in a move that was widely condemned by rights groups as discriminatory against Muslims.

Described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities, Rohingya Muslims are facing a catalogue of discrimination in their homeland.

They have been denied citizenship rights since an amendment to the citizenship laws in 1982 and are treated as illegal immigrants in their own home.

The Burmese government as well as the Buddhist majority refuse to recognize the term “Rohingya”, referring to them as “Bengalis”.

Rights groups have accused the Burmese security forces of killing, raping and arresting Rohingyas following the sectarian violence last year.

Over the past months, thousands of Rohingya refugees fled Burma and Bangladeshi to land in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand where they fell in the custody of respective governments.

An estimated 120,000 Burmese refugees fled to live in 10 camps along the Thailand-Burma border, recent immigration data showed.

Between 2012 and 2013, Buddhists mob attacks have left hundreds of Rohingya Muslims killed and evacuated more than 140,000 from their homes.

The violence has displaced nearly 29,000 people, more than 97 % of whom are Rohingya Muslims, according to the United Nations.

Many now live in camps, adding to 75,000 mostly Rohingya displaced in June 2012, after a previous explosion of sectarian violence.