New Myanmar junta law makes election interference punishable by death

Myanmar’s military council, which is preparing to hold elections while perpetrating a civil war that causes daily civilian deaths across the country, enacted a new law this week that authorises the death penalty for people resisting the planned elections. Junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing signed the “Law on the Prevention of Disruption and Interference with Elections” on Tuesday. The law stipulates that the minimum punishment for interfering with the elections process will be three years in prison, with a death sentence as the severest penalty. Article 27 of the law, which consists of 32 articles altogether, specifies that in cases where a person dies as a result of election-related disturbances, all implicated individuals will be sentenced to death. This law has been introduced at a time when various resistance groups are declaring their intention to oppose what they call the military’s sham elections by any means available. The junta may be enacting the law to signal the regime’s determination to proceed with the vote. The junta’s stated objective in enacting the law is to provide security for participants and stakeholders in the elections. The law also prescribes prison sentences ranging from three years to life for threatening, obstructing, or disturbing candidates during their campaigns. According to the law, anyone found to be vandalising election commission offices, polling stations, ballot boxes, or other voting infrastructure in groups can be handed prison sentences depending on severity, including a life sentence. Threats, intimidation, or physical harm towards voters, polling station staff, or election commission members will also carry sentences of three years to life. Organising against, protesting, or promoting and publishing content with the intent of disrupting the election will also be criminalised, with violators subject to fines or prison sentences between three and seven years. The new law also provides for the formation of a 14-member “Central Committee for Security Supervision”, chaired by the junta’s home affairs minister, with the deputy home affairs minister and deputy defence minister serving as vice chairs and the chief of police serving as secretary. The committee’s responsibilities will include monitoring and gathering intelligence on domestic and international organisations that may disrupt security during the election period, and issuing directives for action against them. Below the central committee, 10-member committees will be tasked with similar responsibilities at the regional and state levels. These committees will each be chaired by the regional or state ministers of security and border affairs with the regional or state chiefs of police serving as secretaries. The junta chief appears to be emulating the strategies once used by his mentor and The military chief appears to be following the same strategies once used by his mentor and antecedent, former Sen-Gen Than Shwe, the dictator who headed the country’s previous military regime and enacted the National Convention Protection Law. However, there has never been a law in Myanmar’s history that imposes the death penalty for interfering with the conduct of elections. “There is nothing I don’t dare do,” Min Aung Hlaing once said. The junta’s top general seized power in a coup in February 2021, citing irregularities in the voter rolls from the previous November’s election. Although he recently turned 69, he has yet to step down from his post as commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s defence services. According to a former senior military officer living in Naypyitaw, the junta’s administrative capital, the introduction of this law is most likely motivated by Min Aung Hlaing’s ambition to become president in the near future. “This is not a fair law—it’s a threat to anyone who dares stand in the way of his presidential dream,” the ex-officer said. Reports indicate that following this year’s election, the new government may appoint the military chief as president and Khin Yi, the head of the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party, to another key position. Some political parties have reportedly received assurances that seats will be allocated to them in parliament. Many political parties are preparing to contest the election. The military tried to justify the 2021 coup by rejecting the results of the 2020 election, a landslide victory for the National League for Democracy party headed by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The military arrested many leaders of the NLD government, including Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, following the coup. After many unarmed civilians who took to the streets to protest the coup were gunned down, armed resistance movements opposed to military rule emerged throughout the country. More than four years after the coup, the military has lost control over large swathes of territory in Myanmar to resistance forces, which are still active and supported by both domestic and overseas Burmese communities, and allied ethnic armed organisations. The military has intensified its indiscriminate airstrikes on multiple fronts, attempting to regain lost ground and ensure the elections are held at all costs. Despite scepticism and condemnation from the international community, some countries, including China, have quietly supported the coup regime’s bid to legitimise its rule through elections.

New Myanmar junta law makes election interference punishable by death

The military has warned that sabotage or disruption of the upcoming elections will carry penalties ranging from three years’ imprisonment to a death sentence

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