Burma Junta Dissolves 40 Political Parties, Including Suu Kyi’s NLD

Protesters hold up posters featuring Aung San Suu Kyi and make three-finger salutes in Yangon, Burma, on Feb. 8, 2021. Stringer/Getty Images

The military junta in Burma said on March 28 that it had dissolved 40 political parties, including the party led by deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, ahead of an election the junta intends to hold later this year.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party and the other 39 parties were dissolved because they failed to register as political parties by the deadline on March 28, the junta’s Ministry of Information said in a notice.

Sixty-three political parties have registered at local and national levels, the ministry stated.

NLD official Tun Myint said the party won’t register for the election while many of its members, including Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, are still imprisoned or “involved in the revolution.”

“It doesn’t matter whether they say our party is dissolved or not. We are standing with the support of people,” he told Reuters.

While the NLD ruled Burma (also known as Myanmar) from 2015 to 2021 with parliamentary majorities, it was ousted by a military coup in February 2021. Suu Kyi and several other NLD officials were detained on corruption charges following the coup.

Kyaw Zaw, a spokesperson for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), denounced the promised polls as a sham and said the political party didn’t register because they “respect the wishes of the people.”

United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric on March 28 called for the immediate release of Suu Kyi and others who have been held by the military junta since its takeover.

“We want to see a return to democracy in Myanmar. We would like to see the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other people who continue to be detained, and we will continue to work towards that,” he said.

‘Bound to Intensify Armed Conflict’

The International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank, said in its recent report that the upcoming polls, for which the military junta hasn’t yet announced the exact date, are “bound to intensify armed conflict“ in Burma.

“Amid the state oppression following the 2021 coup, no election can be credible, especially when much of the population sees a vote as a cynical attempt to supplant the landslide victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD in 2020,” the ICG stated.

“The polls will almost certainly intensify the post-coup conflict, as the regime seeks to force them through and resistance groups seek to disrupt them.”

Protesters taking part in a demonstration against the military coup run as security forces launch a clampdown on the protest in Yangon, Burma, on Dec. 5, 2021. STR/AFP via Getty Images

The report suggested that Western countries coordinate with their Asian allies in insisting that the polls in Burma are “transparently unfair and dangerous” and that none should provide electoral assistance.

“No foreign government or electoral organization should provide support for the elections, which the regime would cite as evidence that its polls are legitimate,” the report reads.

The election would return Burma to the quasi-civilian democratic system that experts say the military can control, with the NLD being out of the picture.

Under the power-sharing arrangement outlined in the constitution, the military is guaranteed three ministerial portfolios, a quarter of all legislative seats, and a say in who gets nominated to become president.

“The coup was intended not to overturn this constitutional order, but to remove Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD from the political landscape, in favor of the military’s vision of sharing power with a civilian administration deferential to its prerogatives,” the ICG stated.

“The elections are intended to achieve this outcome, rather than to be any kind of exercise for channeling the will of the people.”

Reuters contributed to this report.