Despite its dissolution for illegal activity by its leader, the United Democratic Party (UDP)—popularly known as the “Rose Party”—was permitted to re-register on February 9, clearing the way for it to participate in the Myanmar junta’s upcoming election.
Ye Naing Tun, one of the UDP’s leading members, told Myanmar Now on Monday that the re-registration was backed by party “enthusiasts” from every state and region in the country.
“Nearly all of the 25 founders are veteran members of the Rose Party,” he said.
He added that two new names, both using the same acronym as the party’s original name, were submitted to meet a legal requirement for disbanded parties to re-register under a new name.
“We registered the party as both the Union Democracy Party and Union Development Party, but I don’t know which one the UEC will approve,” he said, referring to the junta’s election commission.
Both names emphasise the party’s representation of the entire Union of Myanmar, he added.
Ye Naing Tun also clarified that despite one of the two submitted party names being the Union Democracy Party, his party had no affiliation with another, now-defunct political party of the same name.
The older Union Democracy Party, once chaired by Phyo Min Thein, the ousted chief minister of Yangon Region, was disbanded in July 2020 due to its failure to compete in more than three constituencies.
“We have no connection with that whatsoever, and we are made up entirely of former Rose Party members,” he said.
According to Ye Naing Tun, the party’s operations will continue according to the policies of its imprisoned former chairman, Kyaw Myint, and the party will also keep its old logo depicting a rose with leaves. However, the positions of chair and vice chair are not filled yet and it is unclear who will serve as the party’s leaders.
“This is merely each of us who admired him in every state and region coming together to act on his policies and goals as part of his party,” he said.
He added that the members of the re-registered party have not yet contacted Kyaw Myint, who is currently detained in Insein Prison.
“Since Kyaw Myint is in prison and unable to intervene in the party’s affairs, we still haven’t contacted him. However, every member of the party wants him released as soon as possible. As the UDP, we may reunite with him, but that will be his choice,” said Ye Naing Tun.
The UDP first registered before the 2010 election, but won no seats in parliament that year or in the 2015 general elections. After an exponential growth in membership, the party nominated parliamentary candidates for 1,130 constituencies in the 2020 general election and had the second-highest number of parliamentary candidates nationwide, after the governing National League of Democracy (NLD) party.
However, the Union Election Commission under the NLD ordered the UDP to disband less than a month before the election after it was found to be in illegal possession of funds, including 16bn kyat (around $12m at the time) that had been transferred to Kyaw Myint from China.
That move came a month after Kyaw Myint was arrested following revelations that he had fled the country two decades earlier after breaking out of Mandalay’s Obo Prison, where he was serving a nine-year sentence for money laundering and other charges.
Ye Naing Tun claimed that several other political parties have offered to form alliances with the UDP, but that they planned to discuss these proposals only after the registration process was complete.
Since the junta enacted a new Political Parties Registration Act in late January, its election commission has accepted registration applications from four political parties.
These include the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party and the Myanmar People’s Democratic Party, which applied to extend their existing registrations, as well as the Federal Democratic Party (led by the daughters of former prime minister U Nu) and the UDP, which applied to register as new parties.
The junta changed the Political Parties Registration Act on January 26, aiming to deal a final blow to the NLD and restricting the number of additional parties competing in elections.
As amended, the law required any party intending to contest elections at the national level to have 160 branch offices operating throughout the country within 180 days and a membership of at least 100,000 within three months after the amendments went into effect.
Less than a week later, on the second anniversary of the 2021 coup, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing extended the state of emergency justifying the military council’s ongoing claim to authority, while admitting the junta had not yet achieved stability and security in enough areas of the country to be ready for elections.
However, the junta has not yet clearly indicated that it intends to postpone the military-organised elections planned for 2023.
