Myanmar’s dominant pro-military party has won junta-run elections, a party source said yesterday, after a monthlong vote that democracy watchdogs dismissed as a rebranding of army rule.
The military snatched power in a 2021 coup, ending Myanmar’s experiment with civilian rule and triggering civil war, but pledged a three-phase vote, which finished on Sunday, would return power to the people.
With popular democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi detained and her party dissolved, critics say the ballot was stacked with army allies to prolong their grip on power.
Photo: AFP
Voting was not held in huge patches of the country controlled by rebel factions fighting in the civil war — another hurdle cited by those questioning the poll’s mandate.
“We won a majority already,” a senior official from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) said on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to share preliminary results.
“We are in the position to form a new government,” they said. “As we won in the election, we will move forward.”
Many analysts describe the USDP — which is staffed by retired senior officers — as a civilian proxy of the military, which has stage-managed the poll to give its rule a veneer of civilian legitimacy.
“They won since before the election,” said one 28-year-old Yangon resident, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“They were the only ones in the race, and they were the referee,” they added. “Almost everyone won’t have faith in the government they will form.”
Official results are expected later this week.
The USDP comfortably won the opening two phases of the election on Dec. 28 and Jan. 11.
A quarter of unelected parliamentary seats are to be reserved for members of the armed forces, under the terms of a constitution drafted during a previous stint of military rule.
A combined house majority of MPs are to elect the president after parliament convenes in March.
Touring Mandalay city polling stations in civilian dress on Sunday, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing again declined to rule out serving as the new government’s president.
While the military has touted the poll as an opportunity for reconciliation, rebel factions regard it as illegitimate, and conflict monitors say it is unlikely to stymie the civil war.
Elections were called off in one in five of Myanmar’s townships amid the fighting, but the military waged a withering pre-poll offensive, including attacks rights groups allege may include war crimes.
In junta-held territory, dissent has been purged, with new laws punishing protest or criticism of the election with up to a decade in prison.
Parties that won 90 percent of seats in 2020 did not appear on the ballot this time, the Asian Network for Free Elections said.
More than 22,000 people are languishing in junta jails, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group.
“While the election results within Myanmar have never been in doubt, the election result that matters most is the response of the international community,” UN expert Tom Andrews said last week. “International acceptance of this fraudulent exercise would set back the clock on genuine resolution to this crisis.”
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS