Myanmar’s military-controlled Election Commission has announced that the party of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be disbanded for failing to re-register under the new electoral law, state television reported.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) was one of 40 political parties that failed to complete registration by the election registration deadline set by the ruling military, Myawaddy TV said in an evening bulletin on Tuesday, March 28.
In January 2023, the military gave political parties two months to re-register under strict new electoral laws before promising to hold new polls, which opponents say are neither free nor fair.
The NLD said it would not contest the so-called illegal election.
Election legislator Bo Bo Oo from the NLD said on Tuesday, “We absolutely do not accept elections when many political leaders and political activists are being arrested and people are being tortured by the military.”
In November 2020, the NLD won a landslide victory in the national parliamentary elections. But less than three months later, the army staged a coup and imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi.
The 77-year-old Nobel laureate was found guilty on a series of political charges brought by the military and is now serving a total of 33 years in prison. Her supporters say the charges are designed to keep her from becoming politically active.
Army defends coup
The military defended the coup, saying there had been widespread vote-rigging, although independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.
Some critics of Min Aung Hlaing, the senior general who led the coup and became Myanmar’s supreme leader, believe he acted because the vote thwarted his own political ambitions.
A new poll date has yet to be set. According to the army’s own plans, they were expected to take place by the end of July.
But in February, the military declared a surprise six-month extension of the state of emergency, delaying the legal date for possible elections.
It said safety could not be guaranteed. The army does not control large swaths of the country, and it faces widespread armed resistance to its rule.
More than 3,100 people have been killed and more than 20,000 arrested since the coup, according to local monitoring groups.
Myanmar’s military has been accused of indiscriminate killings of civilians following a massive offensive to suppress an armed resistance movement that opposed the government it took over two years ago.
