AFP (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Publish : 05 Sep 2023, 08:23

Myanmar's junta will likely hold elections in 2025, partyofficials told AFP on Tuesday, even as the military struggles to crushresistance to its rule.

The military justified its February 2021 putsch withunsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 elections wonresoundingly by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).

The coup ended a 10-year democratic experiment and plungedthe country into turmoil, with the military now battling opponents acrossswathes of the country.

"Elections are likely to be held in 2025," asenior member of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Partytold AFP, requesting anonymity.

"We have a census-taking process in 2024. Because ofthe situation (in Myanmar) and that nationwide census process, next year isimpossible," they said.

A member of a junta-approved party said it was likely"elections will be held in early 2025", without elaborating.

A junta spokesman did not pick up AFP calls seeking comment.

36 political parties have been granted permission to takepart in any future polls, the junta-stacked election commission said Tuesday,without giving a date for when they would be held.

Seven had been approved to compete countrywide, and 29 on aregional level.

It also announced the scrapping of the first-past-the-postsystem, under which the NLD won crushing majorities at the expense ofmilitary-backed parties.

A proportional representation system would be used acrossthe country, it said.

In March, the election commission dissolved the NLD forfailing to re-register under tough new military-authored rules.

Suu Kyi co-founded the NLD in 1988 and won a landslidevictory in 1990 elections that were subsequently annulled by the then-junta.

The party carried the torch for democratic aspirations inmilitary-ruled Myanmar and later won big victories over military-backed partiesin elections in 2015 and 2020.

Its leadership has been decimated in the junta's bloodycrackdown on dissent, with one former lawmaker executed by the junta in thecountry's first use of capital punishment in decades.

'Sham' 

The junta accepts it does not control swathes of the countryand has previously pushed back the timeline for holding polls.

"It's highly uncertain if and when polls will takeplace, there is no discernible timetable," independent analyst DavidMathieson told AFP.

"It shouldn't have to be reemphasized, but any poll anytime under whatever conditions will be bereft of legitimacy and meaning."

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing called for "necessarypreparations" to be completed ahead of the national census in 2024, thestate-backed Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Saturday.

An election can only take place after a census has beencompleted, the paper reported him as saying.

The US has said any elections under the junta would be a"sham" and analysts say they would be targeted by the junta'sopponents. 

Russia, a major ally and arms supplier, has said it backsthe plan for polls.

Khin Yi, chairman of the military-backed Union Solidarityand Development Party said his party was preparing for a future election. 

"There have been threats," Khin Yi told AFP,without elaborating. 

"However I'm moving forward... This time is the periodto motivate our party."

The army ruled Myanmar for decades after independence fromBritain in 1948 and dominated the country's economy and politics even beforethe coup.

Myanmar remains mired in almost daily bomb blasts andfighting, with thousands of civilians caught up in the violence.