Myanmar election in December: Junta lifts emergency 4 years after coup against Suu Kyi govt

Four years after taking over the ‘country in a coup, Myanmar’s military junta has ended the emergency and formed a commission to hold elections in December.

On February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military ousted the country’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing assumed power. He declared a state of emergency in the country and detained several civilian leaders. The outrage against the coup led to a civil war that continues to this day.

After Hlaing on Wednesday said that elections will be held in December, the state media reported on Thursday that the junta has set up an 11-member commission led by Hlaing to hold elections.

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While Hlaing has called elections as an offramp in the civil war that has not gone in the junta’s favour, critics and opposition groups have slammed elections as sham and announced a boycott. Analysts have said that Hlaing will stay in power after elections either as the head of state or the head of the armed forces.

By all accounts, the civil war has not gone in favour of Myanmar’s junta. As per estimates, the junta controls just a fifth of the country and the rest of the country remains in the hands of either the National Unity Government (NUG) of the opposition groups or various ethnic armed groups active in the country.

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Myanmar’s junta enacts tough election law

Just before the announcement of elections and the setting up of the commission, the junta on Wednesday enacted a law that imposes punishments of up to the death penalty for anyone who opposes or disrupts elections later this year, according to the Associated Press.

The new law says that anyone who speaks, organises, incites, protests, or distributes letters to disrupt any part of the electoral process shall be punished with three to ten years of imprisonment and a fine.

As the junta enacted the law, Hlaing said that “we have already passed the first chapter” and “now we are starting the second chapter”.

“The upcoming election will be held this December, and efforts will be made to enable all eligible voters to cast their ballots,” the state media reported him as saying.