Myanmar junta imprisons candidate who made ‘Spring Revolution’ reference

Authorities have sentenced political candidate Lwin Myint to one year’s imprisonment and hard labour after he publicly used the phrases ‘2021 Spring Revolution’ and ‘popular uprising’ during the 2025 election campaign. Lwin Myint, 68, is a former political prisoner who stood for a parliamentary seat representing a Yangon constituency in the junta-organised 2025 election. During the campaign, he referred to his previous involvement in the ‘Spring Revolution’, the phrase opponents of the junta use for the nonviolent protests, civil disobedience, enlistment in armed groups, and other forms of resistance to the military coup. In response, propagandists for the junta accused him of sympathising with “terrorists” on pro-junta social media channels. A junta security unit summoned him for questioning on November 17, 2025, more than a month before the first phase of the elections on December 28. He was convicted of violating Article 58c of Myanmar’s election laws and handed a one-year sentence on January 8, according to Wunna Soe, the head of the People’s Party’s legal team. “Lwin Myint had been on bail while facing trial. But following the verdict sentencing him to prison and hard labour, he was immediately taken into custody. He is now being held in the detention cell of the Thingangyun Township Court,” he said. The party intends to appeal Lwin Myint’s sentence, Wunna Soe added, also promising that an official statement from the People’s Party was forthcoming. The parliamentary constituency for which Lwin Myint stood is in Yangon Region’s Thingangyun Township. His party, the People’s Party is led by Ko Ko Gyi, a man best-known for his history as a pro-democracy student activist during the 1988 movement against a previous military dictatorship. While he is the only candidate in the ongoing, junta-managed 2025-26 election to have received a prison sentence, a candidate for the People’s Pioneer Party standing for a constituency in Taunggyi Township, Shan State was arrested for murder in November along with his son. According to a leaflet issued by his campaign, Lwin Myint participated in the 1988 uprising against military rule in Myanmar and was sentenced to 10 years in prison after the 1990 election. His son was also detained on political charges following the 2021 military coup, according to the same leaflet. Lwin Myint’s campaign literature emphasised his pro-democracy activism, noting that three generations of his family including his father and son had also participated in it. Article 58 of the election laws, under which Lwin Myint was charged, prohibits persuading people to participate in or abstain from voting on racial or religious grounds. The junta amended the law in July 2025, adding section ‘c’, which stipulates penalties for violating campaign regulations. Violations carry a penalty of up to one year in prison. The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)—a proxy for the Myanmar military—won most constituencies in the first phase of the junta-run elections on December 28 and is also expected to dominate the next two phases, scheduled for January 11 and 25. While 57 political parties were registered and allowed to compete in the first phase, only six parties contested seats throughout Myanmar, with the rest fielding candidates only at the local or state and regional levels. The military regime manipulated the political party registration process by changing the requirements for registration in 2023, ensuring in advance that the USDP and other military allies would have few viable challengers and be favoured to win throughout most of the country. The regime has enforced draconian laws to persecute opponents of the election, with some kinds of sabotage and election disruption even punishable by death. 335 people have been arrested and charged under these laws since their enactment in July 2025. The junta’s home affairs minister Lt-Gen Tun Tun Naing said at a January 6 meeting in Naypyitaw that security would be tightened for the second and third phases of the election, and that any offenders spreading propaganda to undermine election security would be prosecuted.

Myanmar junta imprisons candidate who made ‘Spring Revolution’ reference

Lwin Myint, a People’s Party candidate and former political prisoner, also highlighted his past activism and participation in the 1988 uprising against military rule in his campaign literature

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