Myanmar’s junta yesterday took another major step in its ongoing campaign to cripple its political opponents, dissolving dozens of opposition parties including that of ousted Burmese state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to meet a registration deadline ahead of elections.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) was one of 40 parties ordered dissolved in an official statement by the Burmese Union Election Commission published on state-controlled media.
The NLD governed Myanmar with overwhelming majorities in parliament from 2015 to 2021 before being overthrown by the military.
Photo: REUTERS
The NLD had already announced that it would not register, denouncing the promised polls as a sham.
The party, and other critics, say that the still-unscheduled polls would be neither free nor fair in a military-ruled country that has shut free media and arrested most of the leaders of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party.
The NLD won a landslide victory in November 2020 elections, but in February 2021, the army blocked all elected lawmakers from taking their seats in parliament and seized power, detaining top members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government and party.
The army takeover was met with widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are embroiled in conflict.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military.
Her supporters say the charges were contrived to prevent her from participating in politics.
Kyaw Htwe, a member of the NLD’s Central Working Committee, on Tuesday said that the party’s existence does not depend on what the military decides, and it “will exist as long as the people support it.”
His statement was a reference to a message Aung San Suu Kyi sent to her supporters through her lawyers in May 2021, when she appeared in court in person for the first time after the military seized power.
She said: “Since the NLD was founded for the people, the NLD will exist as long as the people exist.”
“The party will continue to fulfill the responsibilities entrusted by the people,” Kyaw Htwe said.
The army said it staged its 2021 takeover because of massive election fraud, although independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.
Some critics of Burmese Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the takeover and is now Myanmar’s top leader, believe he acted because the vote thwarted his own political ambitions.
The new polls had been expected by the end of July, but in February, the military announced a six-month extension of its state of emergency, delaying the possible legal date for holding an election.
It said security could not be assured.
“Amid the state oppression following the 2021 coup, no election can be credible, especially when much of the population sees a vote as a cynical attempt to supplant the landslide victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in 2020,” a report issued on Tuesday by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank said. “The polls will almost certainly intensify the post-coup conflict, as the regime seeks to force them through and resistance groups seek to disrupt them.”
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