Naypyidaw: The political party led by Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi was ordered dissolved by the military-appointed election commission on Tuesday because it failed to register for a planned general election, state television MRTV reported.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which has denounced the promised polls as a sham, was one of 40 parties that failed to meet the Tuesday deadline for registration, MRTV said.
Critics say the still-unscheduled polls will be neither free nor fair in a country ruled by the military that has shut free media and arrested most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s party.The NLD won a landslide victory in the November 2020 election, only to have the army block all elected lawmakers from taking their seats in Parliament and seize power for itself, detaining top members of Suu Kyi’s government and party.
“We absolutely do not accept that an election will be held at a time when many political leaders and political activists have been arrested and the people are being tortured by the military,” Bo Bo Oo, one of the elected lawmakers from Suu Kyi’s party, said on Tuesday.
Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totalling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military. Her supporters say the charges were contrived to prevent her from participating in politics.
The army said it staged its 2021 takeover because of massive poll fraud, though independent election observers did not find any major irregularities. Some critics of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the takeover and is now Myanmar’s top leader, believe he acted because the vote thwarted his own political ambitions.
The new polls had been expected by the end of July, according to the army’s own plans. But in February, the military announced a six-month extension of its state of emergency, delaying the possible legal date for holding an election. It said security could not be assured. The military does not control large swaths of the country, where it faces widespread armed resistance to its rule.
The new law declared that existing political parties had to re-apply for registration with the election commission within 60 days — March 28 — and those that fail will be “automatically invalidated” and considered dissolved. It also says parties have to entrust their properties to the government if they are dissolved by their own choice or if their registrations are cancelled under the law.
Agencies

KR Desk