Naypyidaw, Mar 8: Myanmar Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing, during his visit to Belarus, announced that his country’s election is slated for December 2025, or January 2026 at the earliest, state media reported on Saturday.
“Due to electoral fraud in the 2020 general election, we had to declare a state of emergency and temporarily take responsibility for the country. Therefore, we plan to hold a free and fair election soon, under the law,” Hlaing told reporters in Belarus, Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
“We are planning to hold the election in December 2025 or at the earliest by January 2026. 53 political parties have already submitted their lists to participate in the election. Regarding the election, we also invite the observation teams from Belarus to come and observe,” Hlaing added.
Last month, during a cabinet meeting, Hlaing had said that political parties could only launch their campaigns when peace and stability could be maintained in the region. He stated that the regime has lost large swathes of northern Shan State, Rakhine, Kachin, Kayah (Karenni), Karen, and Chin states and central Myanmar to rebel groups.
It has also been conducting airstrikes in 13 regions and states, excluding the Yangon Region. However, the military junta’s election promises received domestic and global condemnation. The election promises are termed as fraud aiming at cementing rule by a military that ousted an elected government, reported local media outlet The Irrawaddy.
Myanmar’s military took power in a coup on February 1, 2021 after declaring the results of the November 2020 elections invalid. Country’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been held at an unknown location since then and tried in a closed court with no access for observers.
More than 10,000 political prisoners are believed to have been detained by the military junta, and at least 175 have reportedly died in custody, according to the United Nations human rights office.
In 2021, Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, stated that the junta’s arrest and sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi and thousands of others highlights the relentless assault on the people of Myanmar’s right to exercise their civil and political rights.
Marking the fourth anniversary of the military coup in Myanmar last month, human rights experts mourned the loss of thousands of innocent lives at the hands of a brutal military regime asserting that the country remains under siege. “The junta’s plans, including holding sham elections this year in a backdrop of escalating armed conflict and human rights violations, are a path to ruin,” said Andrews.
IANS