Myanmar’s military-appointed election commission said it would dissolve Burmese State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), because of alleged fraud in the country’s general election in November last year, the Myanmar Now news agency reported yesterday, citing a Burmese military official.
Myanmar Now said that the decision was made during a meeting with political parties, which was boycotted by the NLD and other parties.
“We will have to dissolve the party’s registration,” Burmese Union Election Commission chairman Thein Soe was cited as saying in the report.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Those who committed the fraud “will be considered as traitors and we will take action,” Thein Soe said.
Spokespeople for the junta as well as for a NLD-backed national unity government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party said that it had representatives at the meeting, which was still going on, adding that he was not aware of the outcome.
The military in February took power alleging fraud in the election swept by the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been fighting for democracy for decades before tentative reforms began a decade ago.
A later-disbanded electoral commission rejected the military’s complaints.
Security forces have killed more than 800 people since a wave of protests broke out after the coup, according to data by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners group.
Fighting has also flared between security forces and ethnic minority guerrilla groups.
The turmoil has alarmed Myanmar’s neigbors and the broader international community, but the military has shown no sign of any intention of seeking a compromise with the democracy movement.
Since her arrest on Feb. 1, Aung San Suu Kyi has been held in detention and faces numerous charges filed in two courts, the most serious under a colonial-era official secrets act, punishable by 14 years in prison.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, has been permitted to speak with lawyers only via a video link in the presence of security personnel. Her codefendant is Win Myint, the ousted president.
Opponents of the military have formed a national unity government, which operates under cover or through members based abroad.
It has announced that it is setting up of a defense force to challenge the junta.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said that his country, a major donor to Myanmar, would rethink its aid provision if the situation in the Southeast Asian nation does not improve.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS