Bangkok: Political parties in military-run Myanmar on Tuesday kicked off their election campaigns, two months ahead of scheduled national polls that are widely seen as an effort to confer legitimacy on the military’s 2021 seizure of power, even as the country’s civil war precludes voting in many areas.
Campaigning began just a day after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a meeting with leaders of Southeast Asian nations, warned that the planned election could cause further instability and deepen Myanmar’s crisis.
Critics of the military-led government charge that the polls, which are set to begin on December 28, will be neither free nor fair.
Fifty-seven parties have registered for the contest but Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which won the last two elections by landslides only to be ousted by the army, is not among them. It was one of dozens of parties ordered disbanded by the army-appointed Union Election Commission more than two years ago after it refused to take part in what it saw as a sham process.
On Tuesday, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party held ceremonies in the capital Naypyitaw and Yangon, the country’s largest city, to unveil its campaign slogan “Stronger Myanmar.”
The ceremony in Naypyitaw, attended by hundreds of green-clad supporters, was led by the party’s senior figures, including former generals now serving in the Cabinet of the military government.
USDP chairman Khin Yi, a former general and chief of police, said in his speech that the campaign would follow regulations and the law, declaring that the poll’s results would confer legitimacy.
Other parties have not yet staged campaign events on the ground but are instead focusing their outreach on social media platforms, especially Facebook. State television and radio will carry nightly broadcasts by registered parties through November 24.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who heads the military government, has said that six parties will contest nationwide for seats.
However, due to fighting, the polls cannot be held in all 330 townships, he said.agencies