Kyaw Zaw Oo, a member of the Arakan National Party’s Central Executive Committee, has become the latest politician to the defect from the increasingly enfeebled ethnic Rakhine political party, which saw its chairman resign last week.

The Arakan National Party will hold a meeting of members of its Central Executive Committee to discuss the resignation letter submitted by its chairman, Aye Maung, who officially signalled his intention to leave the party earlier this week.

Pope Francis on Tuesday urged the leaders of majority-Buddhist Burma, mired in a crisis over the fate of Muslim Rohingya people, to commit themselves to justice, human rights and respect for “each ethnic group and its identity.”

The chair of the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party has said the party will renew efforts to unify Burma’s two most prominent ethnic Shan political parties, the other being the regionally dominant Shan Nationalities League for Democracy.

The executive committee of the Arakan National Party’s Sittwe chapter has been dissolved after party leaders decided this week that committee members were not meeting expectations.

Following the resignations of three Arakan National Party (ANP) lawmakers in as many days, the trio intend to join the rival, resuscitated Arakan League for Democracy (ALD), according to the ALD’s general secretary.