YANGON: Myanmar’s dominant pro-military party has won junta-run elections, a party source told AFP on Monday (Jan 26), after a month-long vote that democracy watchdogs dismissed as a rebranding of army rule.
While the military has said the election will return power to the people, popular democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi remains detained since the coup and her party has been dissolved, while critics say the ballot was stacked with army allies.
“We won a majority already,” a senior official from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to share preliminary results.
“We are in the position to form a new government,” they said, after the vote’s third and final phase took place on Sunday. “As we won in the election, we will move forward.”
Many analysts describe the USDP as a civilian proxy of the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup, toppling the democratic government of Suu Kyi.
Voting was not held in huge patches of the country controlled by rebel factions fighting in the civil war, triggered by the coup – another hurdle cited by those questioning the poll’s mandate.
Official results are expected later this week.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/myanmar-election-victory-power-union-solidarity-development-party-junta-5882736
