Junta to discuss plans for 2025 elections at Naypyitaw Peace Forum

Discussions of a nationwide election that the junta plans to hold this year will be on the agenda of a conference attended this week by military officials in the regime’s capital, Naypyitaw, as reported by junta-run media. A participant in the conference—called the “Peace Forum”—said junta chief Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing was attending, along with representatives of several ethnic armed groups operating around the country that are not currently fighting the junta but have yet to sign a ceasefire or peace agreement. Officials from the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Shan State Progress Party (SSPP). and the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), were present at the forum. The attendees also included delegations from countries with ties to the military regime, such as diplomats from China, India, and Russia and armoured vehicle experts from six countries. Armed groups that were signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and political parties allowed by the military also sent officials to the forum. Beginning on Wednesday, June 25 and running through Friday at Naypyitaw’s Mingalar Thiri Hotel, the forum’s primary objective will ostensibly be to address ongoing armed conflict in the country and seek potential paths to ending the civil war, according to a statement issued by the junta. Speaking at the event, Min Aung Hlaing said the door remains open to all ethnic armed groups willing to lay down their arms, negotiate, and form political parties to participate in government. “Since February 2021, we have kept the door open for peace talks,” the junta chief said. “It’s clear that we’ve held meetings, extended invitations, and engaged in dialogue without setting any preconditions.”He added that, in accordance with the military-drafted constitution of 2008, authority will be handed over to any government that wins the elections the junta is planning for the end of this year. The military regime dissolved several political parties around two years after the coup in 2023, including the National League for Democracy party that governed Myanmar before being deposed in the military coup of 2021. The junta purportedly disbanded the NLD and other parties for failing to meet criteria the junta had recently changed for participation in union-level elections. “Our focus now is on preparing thoroughly to conduct a comprehensive and conclusive election. Above all, the election must be free and fair,” Min Aung Hlaing said. A forum participant predicted that the junta chief leader will be most likely to hold negotiations with Myanmar’s armed groups when he has formed a government following the planned election. “If the election takes place, no single person can handle all three branches of government alone, so what happens next will depend on various stakeholders,” he added. “Whether the military decides to step back or not, I believe it will be a gradual process.” Opponents of military rule in Myanmar and the international community have mostly dismissed the junta’s planned elections as a deceptive ploy for legitimacy, noting that elections overseen by an oppressive dictatorship cannot be credibly free or fair. “They want to find an exit ramp to the international pressure,” said United Nations (UN) special rapporteur Tom Andrews on the same day the Peace Forum opened. The military regime has faced isolation on the international stage since seizing power in 2021, with foreign countries imposing targeted sanctions and international courts issuing warrants and threatening legal action against junta officials. With foreign investment from many countries drying up in response to the military’s takeover and violent crackdown, the consequent armed conflict, and the imposition of sanctions, the military regime has had to rely increasingly on support from China and Russia. An expert adviser to the UN who does not speak for the organisation itself, Andrews condemned the planned elections as “fraud,” accusing the junta of “trying to create this mirage of an election exercise that will create a legitimate civilian government.” “It's really important that countries reject this idea of an election and not allow the military junta to attempt to get away with this fraud,” Andrews said on Wednesday. Following his remarks at the Peace Forum, the coup leader reportedly flew to Belarus from Naypyitaw Airport at around 10am on Wednesday. The coup leader, who alleged without credible evidence that the results of the 2020 general election won by the National League for Democracy (NLD) were fraudulent, announced that the elections overseen by the junta would be held in December of this year, thus necessitating more peace negotiations with ethnic armed organisations (EAOs). The military council invited the leaders of the country’s major EAOs to send delegates to the peace forum. Some EAOs gave no response, while several including the powerful Kachin Independence Army (KIA) declined the request. While inviting negotiations with long-established EAOs, the junta has labelled resistance groups that emerged after the 2021 coup, including the publicly mandated National Unity Government and its armed wing, the People’s Defence Forces, as terrorist organisations.

Junta to discuss plans for 2025 elections at Naypyitaw Peace Forum

The forum—attended by diplomats, junta generals, and representatives of various ethnic armed groups—opened in Myanmar’s capital on the same day that UN special rapporteur Tom Andrews condemned the elections the regime is planning for later this year as “fraud”

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