The Myanmar junta will prosecute dismissed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi for alleged electoral fraud during the 2020 elections that her party won with an avalanche of votes.
Suu Kyi will be prosecuted for “electoral fraud and illegal actions”, writes the state newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar, without giving details on when the legal proceedings should begin. According to the newspaper, the same accusation is leveled at fifteen other officials, including former president Win Myint and the president of the electoral commission.
Former Burmese leader San Suu Kyi was deposed by the army in February and then targeted by a multitude of legal proceedings. In fact, since February Myanmar has been led by a military junta after the coup that sparked protests across the nation, which was followed by a harsh repression of dissent. Detainee since the coup, Suu Kyi, 76, faces a variety of charges including the illegal importation of walkie talkies, sedition and corruption, and faces decades in prison if convicted. The former Burmese leader is already on trial for violating coronavirus restrictions while campaigning ahead of the elections, in which his party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), defeated a party close to the military.
According to international observers, the 2020 elections contested by the military were largely free and fair. The junta threatened to dissolve the NLD and last month jailed Win Htein, a close associate of Suu Kyi and a high-level leader, sentencing him to 20 years on charges of treason. Since February, more than 1,250 people have been killed by the Myanmar junta security forces and more than 10,000 have been arrested, a local monitoring group reported.