Myanmar’s ousted ruling party and one of the country’s oldest and largest ethnic parties have both said that they won’t submit to an audit by the junta-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC).
Senior members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) confirmed that the parties had been summoned last week to the UEC’s office in Yangon for a planned audit on February 14.
According to Kyaw Htwe, a member of the NLD’s Central Working Committee (CWC), however, the party did not receive any official notification of the order.
“We heard about it, but didn’t receive an official order, so we don’t really know where things stand,” he said. “All I can say is that the CWC has not been directly contacted by the military council.”
The CWC was formed last year after 14 members of the NLD’s central executive committee, including chair Aung San Suu Kyi and vice chairs Win Myint and Dr Zaw Myint Maung, were arrested during the February 1 coup.
Under Myanmar’s Political Parties Registration Law, maintaining a party’s financial records is the responsibility of its chair and the secretary of its central executive committee, meaning that the CWC could not provide such records to the UEC even if it wanted to.
In any case, said Kyaw Htwe, the party had no intention of cooperating with the audit, because it does not recognise the legitimacy of the regime-appointed commission.
“Even the provisions for declaring a state of national emergency, which the military invoked to seize power, don’t grant the military’s commander-in-chief the authority to form an election commission,” he said.
The chair of the SNLD, meanwhile, also indicated that the party would not comply with the UEC’s orders.
“I told them that it would not be easy for us to go to them, so if they want to conduct an audit, they should come to us,” said SNLD chair Sai Nyunt Lwin.
“Normally, audits are done at the office of the organisation being audited. The only time anyone should be summoned by the UEC is when they have been accused of wrongdoing. But we haven’t done anything wrong, so we won’t be going,” he added.
Myanmar Now reached out to members of the UEC, including Tin Maung Aye, the secretary of the Yangon branch of the commission, for comment, but did not receive a response.
Like the NLD, the SNLD was formed in 1988 in the wake of a nationwide uprising against military rule. Both parties were subjected to decades of persecution by the former ruling junta.
According to Sai Nyunt Lwin, the current situation is a throwback to those days.
“To be honest, political parties have absolutely no power now,” he said, noting that control over the state is now once again almost entirely in the hands of the country’s top generals.
Soon after overthrowing Myanmar’s civilian government over alleged irregularities in the 2020 election, the military dissolved the UEC and appointed new members under a former commission chair notorious for his handling of previous elections.
Former general Thein Soe immediately set about overturning the results of the election and taking legal action against the party and its leaders.
Despite the regime’s claims that the NLD committed massive voter fraud, the UEC revealed last month that it had discovered evidence of just over 3,200 election offences—involving barely more than 0.01% of the 26m votes cast in the election.
Meanwhile, the junta has vowed to take legal action for the alleged fraud against several NLD leaders and party members, as well as the more than 420 members of the previous UEC and nearly 2,500 members of local election commissions.
