Election campaign billboards belonging to the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP) have been destroyed in two locations in Muse District in northern Shan State this month.

Sai Boe Aung, an SNDP electoral candidate for Muse Township’s Constituency 1, said that the targeted billboards were in Mang Hai and Tar Lon villages in Muse Township and had been vandalized once before.

“Our billboards were destroyed in Mang Hai village and Tar Lon villages for a second time. We built them again after they were destroyed the first time, and then they were destroyed again. The perpetrators tore down the billboards with knives,” Sai Boe Aung told SHAN.  

He said that the billboards were erected in an area with an ethnic Shan majority.

The SNDP candidate also added that the party had not reported the vandalism to the local election commission, because they did not want to “create any problems.”

“What I want to say is that people need to change their minds and their behavior,” Sai Boe Aung said of the incident.

SNDP’s Upper House parliamentary candidate for Muse District is Nang Ngwe Ngwe, and the party’s Lower House candidate is Sai Aung Myint.

For the state legislature, Sai Boe Aung is running in Consituency 1, while Nang Han Nu is running in Muse Township’s Constituency 2.