Myanmar’s military government moved Wednesday to dissolve dozens of opposing parties including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.
The country’s election commission dissolved 40 parties in all, according to a statement published in a state newspaper, on grounds that they had failed to register for a general election, the date of which has yet to be determined.
NLD said it did not recognize the election commission because it had been set up by the country’s “illegitimate military council.”
“To be clear, any election process that elevates the chief of defense, Min Aung Hlaing, to the position of President Min Aung Hlaing through phony elections will not be recognized by us, and we will oppose it at all costs,” said Yangon region executive committee secretary Tun Myint.
“The demands of the people are to overthrow the military dictatorship, establish federal democracy, and ensure that there is no military influence in Myanmar’s democracy going forward.”
But the announcement in the Global New Light of Myanmar said the Tuesday registration deadline had been met by 50 other parties, many of them pro-military or anti-NLD.
Effectively holding all 664 seats in both houses of parliament would tighten the stranglehold on power of the Tatmadaw military dictatorship which ousted Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in a coup in February 2021.
The military imposed a year-long state of emergency which saw State Counsellor Suu Kyi and President Win Mint and other senior political leaders detained and an ongoing brutal crackdown on protests opposing the coup.
In February this year, the government extended the state of emergency by six months and postponed indefinitely a general election scheduled for August.
Suu Kyi, Mint, and the political leaders remain in custody along with 13,000 of the 16,600 people jailed since the military coup, many of them from the NLD, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). (UPI)
