Upper House MP Htu May has announced her resignation from the Arakan National Party (ANP), citing “differences of opinion over party policies.”
Htu May was elected to represent Ann constituency in Arakan State, also known as Rakhine, after winning the popular vote in the 2015 general election. She has been an ANP member since the party’s inception.
Submitting her resignation yesterday, Htu May stated, “There have been differences of opinion over party policies and other disagreements.”
The ANP was formed in 2014 as a merger between the state’s two main ethnic parties, the Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) and the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP).
[related]
The ANP won 23 seats in the state assembly in the 2015 general election, but increasing internal conflicts have pushed some former ALD members to resign and re-establish the old party.
Disagreement over whether or not to participate in the current peace process, known informally as the 21st Century Panglong Conference, has further widened divisions among ANP members.
