Rohingya politician barred from re-election as hundreds of thousands find themselves struck from voting rolls

• Lawmaker U Shwe Maung, a member of Myanmar’s governing party, was informed by the country’s electoral commission of his ineligibility to run for re-election.
• The commission claimed Shwe Maung was not a citizen, the result of Myanmar’s recent invalidation of the identity cards held by the majority of the country’s Rohingya population.
• The mass disenfranchisement of Rohingya has compromised the integrity of the upcoming November elections, which will be the first to include a democratically led party to compete with the military-backed governing party.

“This is the government really stripping them of their last right. … It suits the government’s long-term plan of compelling them to leave.”

Read the full story at The New York Times.