YANGON – The head of the state electoral commission appointed by the military in Burma, Thein Soe, reported that it will consider the dissolution of the former ruling party of Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy (NLD) for alleged involvement in electoral fraud and given the accusation of treason that hangs on its leaders. “We will investigate and evaluate whether the party should be dissolved and whether the guilty should be punished as traitors,” he said. Political parties were called to discuss planned changes in the electoral system at a meeting today. On this occasion, Soe said that the investigation into last year’s elections will soon be completed and that it emerges that Suu Kyi’s party has illegally collaborated with the executive to give itself an advantage at the polls.
Suu Kyi and other members of her government already face various criminal charges that could prevent them from running in the upcoming elections. Their supporters say all the allegations are politically motivated. Today’s Commission meeting aimed to discuss the junta’s plan to change the country’s electoral system from a majority system to a proportional one. Almost all major parties, including Suu Kyi’s NLD, have refused to participate, as they consider the Commission to be illegitimate. Local media reported that nearly a third of the parties boycotted the meeting: many of the 62 organizations present were pro-military that had poor election results last November, failing to get a single seat.
After taking power, the military fired members of the electoral commission and appointed new ones. Some of them were also arrested and, according to Burmese independent media reports, the junta lobbied for confirmation that they had occurred. The new commission declared the results of the last elections invalid. A non-party election monitoring organization said this week that the results of last November’s votes were representative of the will of the people, rejecting allegations of massive fraud by the military.
The NLD came to power after a landslide victory in the 2015 elections and won an even greater majority in last November’s general election. Suu Kyi was due to begin a second term in February, when the military took power in a coup, arresting her and dozens of senior government officials and party members. The leader of the junta Min Aung Hlaing he had spoken of electoral fraud as a reason for the army’s takeover of power, claiming that “there was terrible fraud on the electoral roll”. The junta had initially announced that it would hold new elections a year after taking power, but later said the delay could be up to two years. Before the start of democratic reforms a decade ago, Burma was under the military dictatorship for 50 years.
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