Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party is expected to face automatic dismissal by a military-appointed electoral commission at midnight on Tuesday because it refused to register for a planned general election it denounced as fraudulent.
Critics say the polls will not be free or fair in a country ruled by a military that has shut down free media and arrested most of the leaders of Su Kyi’s National League for Democracy.
Bo Bo Oo, a former party lawmaker said, “We never agreed that an election would take place at a time when many political leaders and political activists have been arrested by the military who are torturing the people.
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Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison terms totaling 33 years after being found guilty in a series of corruption prosecutions by the military. His supporters say the charges are a conspiracy to keep him out of politics.
The group was the big winner in the general election of November 2020, but not three months later, the military killed him and all the members of parliament who were elected to sit in the parliament, and put the members of the government and his team to prison.
The army said it was due to massive voter fraud, although independent election observers did not find any major irregularities. Some critics of Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup and is now Myanmar’s supreme leader, believes he did it because the vote thwarted his own political ambitions.
No date has been set for new votes. They are expected at the end of July, according to the plans of the army. But in February, the military announced an unprecedented six-month extension of its state of emergency, delaying a possible legal deadline for holding an election. He said that security cannot be guaranteed. The military does not control large areas of the country, where it faces widespread armed opposition to its government.
“Amid the oppression of the city following the 2021 coup, no election can be trusted, especially when the majority of the population sees a vote as a foolish attempt to replace the landslide victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) in 2020,” said a report published on Tuesday by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank.
“The polls will almost certainly increase post-coup conflict, as the government seeks to force them through and opposition groups seek to undermine them.”
The military government introduced a new political party registration law in January which makes it difficult for opposition parties to mount a serious challenge to favored candidates. It sets conditions such as minimum membership levels and candidates and offices of any party without the support of the army and its allies will be difficult to meet, especially in a terrorist political environment.
The new law declares that existing political parties have to re-apply for registration with the Electoral Commission within two months after it takes effect – on March 28 – and that those who fail will be “automatically invalid” and they are released. It also said that the group has to hand over its assets to the government if it is dissolved voluntarily or when it is legally deregistered.
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The National League for Democracy rejected the law a few days after it was announced, saying at the same time that the military-organized elections were illegal and a “shameful election.” He announced that individuals and companies that collaborate in the election with the military will be considered as those who participate in high chaos.
Bo Bo Oo said that the meeting of the Central Working Committee of the party on March 21, also confirmed the decision not to register, and that the election committee and the registration law are illegal.
Myanmar’s state-run daily newspaper Alinn reported on Saturday that a total of 52 political parties had submitted documents to the election commission for registration under the new law. Twelve competed at the national level and 40 at the regional and state level. The committee must approve their applications.
