Myanmar’s dominant pro-military party is “winning a majority” in the first phase of junta-run elections, a party source said yesterday, after democracy watchdogs warned the poll would entrench military rule.
The armed forces snatched power in a 2021 coup, but on Sunday opened voting in a phased month-long election they pledge would return power to the people.
The massively popular but dissolved party of democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi did not appear on ballots, and she remains jailed since the military putsch which triggered a civil war.
Photo: AFP
Campaigners, Western diplomats and the UN rights chief have condemned the vote — citing a stark crackdown on dissent and a candidate list stacked with military allies.
“The USDP [Union Solidarity and Development Party] is winning a majority of seats around the country according to different reports,” a party official said in the capital Naypyidaw, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Official results have yet to be posted by Burmese Union Election Commission and there are two more phases scheduled for Jan. 11 and 25.
The military overturned the results of the last poll in 2020 after Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, trounced the USDP.
The military and USDP then alleged massive voter fraud, claims which international monitors say were unfounded.
However, on Sunday military chief Min Aung Hlaing said the armed forces could be trusted to hand back power to a civilian-led government.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
RSS