Myanmar will hold its first parliamentary elections in two decades on Nov. 7, state media said yesterday, ending speculation over the timing of a poll criticized by rights groups as a sham to entrench military power.
As of this week, at least 40 parties had registered to take part in the first civilian government in almost half a century in the reclusive, army-ruled country of 48 million people.
The US, Britain and human rights groups have said the elections would be illegitimate if the military junta denies a role to thousands of political opponents now in prison, including detained Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which won by a landslide in the last elections in 1990 only to be denied power by the military, has refused to register with the authorities in protest at what it called “unjust” election laws.
Many diplomats and analysts see the polls as intended to strengthen the military’s power under the guise of civilian rule in an attempt to lure investment to the resource-rich country nestled strategically between booming China and India.
“It’s essentially a costume change,” said Jacob Ramsay, senior analyst for Southeast Asia and the Pacific for British-based security consultants Control Risks.
At least seven parties registered with the election commission are believed to be proxies of the military, which will retain control of key ministries and enjoy a 25 percent quota of parliamentary seats under a new Constitution.
The armed forces chief will be more senior than the president. There are no indications an estimated 2,000 political prisoners will be released before or after the elections.
“The government has been working hard in the past months to disqualify or marginalize all possible contenders who might form an opposition to its plan to essentially parachute its generals into civilian roles,” Ramsay said.
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention and remains under house arrest. The Constitution bars her from standing in the election because of her criminal record as a political detainee and because her late husband was a foreigner.
Her NLD party was dissolved this year after deciding not to register for the polls.
Daughter of the hero of the country’s campaign for independence from British rule, Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a champion of political reform during an unsuccessful student-led uprising for democracy in 1988. A year later she was first detained.
The National Democratic Force, a renegade faction of the NLD opposed by Aung San Suu Kyi, will run to challenge the junta’s proxies and says it will work with other pro-democracy parties. However, without Aung San Suu Kyi, few expect it gain traction.
One of Myanmar’s biggest opposition political parties, the Union Democracy Party, threatened this week to pull out of the elections if there were signs of foul play by the ruling military in the run-up to the polls.
Some parties have accused the regime’s military intelligence unit of spying on and trying to intimidate their members.
Political analysts and diplomats, however, say the election could mark a turning point which, over the longer term, delivers a gradual transition of power to a civilian government free of military control. They add that this would be an evolutionary process rather than a junta-inspired shift.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS