Myanmar junta chief vows to hold elections in 2025

The leader of Myanmar’s coup regime, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, vowed on Saturday to hold long-delayed elections next year, five years after the country last went to the polls. Speaking to junta officials in the military stronghold of Meiktila in Mandalay Region, the head of the military council said that plans were already in place to begin the election process. “Efforts are being made to enumerate the population and household census in October as part of preparations for holding a free and fair multiparty democratic general election in the coming year,” he said, according to junta-controlled media. Since seizing power more than three years ago, Min Aung Hlaing has repeatedly made vague assurances that elections would go ahead once the situation in the country had stabilised. However, as much of Myanmar remains in a state of turmoil, he appears to have shifted his focus to its ailing economy, which has also been hard-hit by his decision to overthrow the elected civilian government in February 2021. “If all work processes are not implemented for political reasons, the country will face lesser development,” state media quoted him as saying. The planned elections will be held nationwide, he said, beginning in areas still under his regime’s control. It was not clear, however, if they would be conducted simultaneously or region by region. The current crisis stems from Min Aung Hlaing’s claims of irregularities in Myanmar’s last elections, which were held in November 2020 and won by the ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), in a landslide. After mounting a coup over the NLD’s refusal to address his allegations, which were made without evidence, he nullified the results and later disbanded the party. Many of the party’s leaders, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, remain imprisoned on corruption and other charges. At meetings of the National Defence and Security Council held since the coup, the junta chief has regularly reiterated his goal of restoring civilian rule by holding elections under military supervision. In an interview with Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency in March, he acknowledged that it might not be possible to hold the vote in all parts of the country. “If the state is peaceful and stable, we have a plan to hold the election in relevant sections as much as we can even if the election is not held nationwide under the law,” he said. The 2021 coup provoked massive protests throughout the country, which the regime responded to with lethal force. This drove many young protesters to form armed resistance groups with the support of ethnic armed organisations operating in border regions. Despite having vastly greater firepower, the regime has since lost control over wide swathes of the country, particularly in the ethnic-minority areas of Rakhine, Kachin, Chin, Karenni (Kayah), and Shan states. Its hold over Sagaing and Magway regions, which were largely conflict-free before the coup, has also weakened substantially, as members of the ethnic Bamar majority have also turned against the regime in large numbers. While the publicly mandated National Unity Government, formed in the wake of the coup to spearhead the resistance movement, has rejected the junta’s planned elections, some parties have expressed a willingness to take part. As of mid-June, 47 political parties were registered with the junta-appointed Union Election Commission, including the military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the Arakan Front Party led by pro-junta politician Dr. Aye Maung, and the People’s Party led by Ko Ko Gyi, a leader of the pro-democracy movement that emerged from mass protests in 1988. Last Friday, the USDP reported that its leaders and party members in Yangon Region held a meeting to discuss “reviewing and reporting on the measures taken by district and township level USDP campaigners in order to secure victory in the election.”

Myanmar junta chief vows to hold elections in 2025

Min Aung Hlaing’s announcement comes as his regime’s hold over much of the country looks increasingly tenuous

Subscribe for full access

Explainer: Who are the companies and cronies backing Myanmar junta leader’s Thailand visit?

From palace stages to exile: A Myanmar dancer who chose conscience over ceremony

Her parents gone, a Myanmar student prays for the return of a father lost in conflict

Rakhine State floods put AA administration to its biggest test yet

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles

From palace stages to exile: A Myanmar dancer who chose conscience over ceremony

AA says it is blocking the Myanmar military’s attempt to advance into Rakhine State from Ayeyarwady

Thailand backs greater ASEAN role for Myanmar junta as Min Aung Hlaing visits Bangkok

Myanmar junta raids online scam hub in southern Shan, arrests 49 including 38 Chinese nationals