Malaysia will send observer teams for Myanmar’s regime scheduled elections, set to be held in phases beginning on Dec. 28, regime media reported on Friday, a day after talks in Naypyidaw between Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan and regime leader Min Aung Hlaing.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since a 2021 military coup overthrew the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who was jailed on Feb. 1, 2021 and has been held incommunicado by the regime ever since.
The 2021 Myanmar coup triggered an armed uprising that has led to large parts of the country out of the regime’s control.
“[Mohamad Hasan] advised that the election should be all-inclusive and vowed to send election observation teams to Myanmar,” regime media reported.
The comment came after Hasan met Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw on Thursday, weeks ahead of an October summit of the regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Malaysia’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
It made no mention of Malaysian election observers in a social media post that stated, “The upcoming elections in Myanmar were also discussed.”
Mohamad Hasan and Min Aung Hlaing discussed implementing ASEAN’s peace plan, known as the Five Point Consensus, including halting violence, expanding humanitarian assistance and holding talks, the ministry added.
Malaysia and Myanmar are both members of ASEAN, which has barred the latter’s military leaders from its meetings since 2022, citing their failure to adopt the peace roadmap that Min Aung Hlaing had agreed to in April 2021 but didn’t implement upon his return to Myanmar.
Critics and many Western nations view the coming regime elections as a sham exercise designed to solidify and legitimize the military’s rule via a proxy political party known as the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which governed Myanmar under a hybrid military regime from 2011-16 before it lost resoundingly to the NLD in the 2015 and 2020 general elections.
The ballot will be held amid a bitter civil war, with key opposition groups, including the NLD, banned and new electoral laws that favour parties backed by the military. In the fray will be 57 political parties that have registered for the polls, six of which plan to compete nationwide, according to the regime’s Union Election Commission (UEC).
In remarks after a January ASEAN meeting on Malaysia’s island of Langkawi, Mohamad Hasan had said the grouping told Myanmar’s regime that an election should not be its priority, and urged instead for dialogue and an end to fighting.
REUTERS
