Myanmar pro-military occasion claims Aung San Suu Kyi’s seat in junta-run ballot | USAEMALL.com

YANGON: Myanmar’s main pro-military party on Monday (Jan 12) claimed victory in the parliamentary seat of sidelined democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi in elections being derided as a ploy to prolong junta rule.

The armed forces have ruled Myanmar for most of the nation’s post-independence history before a decade-long democratic thaw saw civilians assume control.

But the military snatched back power with a 2021 coup, deposing and detaining Aung San Suu Kyi after claiming she won a landslide election win over pro-military party by means of massive voter fraud.

The junta says the current month-long vote – which has its final phase scheduled for Jan 25 – will return power to the people.

With Aung San Suu Kyi still held in seclusion and her hugely popular party dissolved, democracy advocates say the vote has been rigged by a crackdown on dissent and a ballot stacked with military allies.

An official from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), speaking anonymously because they were unauthorised to share results, said they “won in Kawhmu” – Aung San Suu Kyi’s former seat in Yangon region.

“We won 15 lower house seats out of 16 places in Yangon region,” they added, after Kawhmu and dozens of other constituencies voted in the election’s second stage on Sunday.

The official did not say by what margin the party claimed its win and official results of the second round have yet to be posted by the junta-stacked election commission.

But the USDP – described by many analysts as the military’s prime proxy – won nearly 90 per cent of lower house seats in the first phase, official results say.

“It should surprise no one that the military-backed party has claimed a landslide victory,” UN rights expert Tom Andrews said in a statement last week.

“The junta engineered the polls to ensure victory for its proxy, entrench military domination, and manufacture a facade of legitimacy while violence and repression continue unabated.”