A candidate for a political party has been detained by a resistance group opposed to military rule, regime media reported on Wednesday. This is the first known detention of an electoral candidate before the regime’s 2025-26 elections set to begin on Dec. 28 and continue into January 2026.
Regime media reported that Wai Lin Htet, 37, a Shan and Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP) candidate, was detained by a resistance group. This highlights ongoing tensions in Myanmar, where fighting between regime and resistance forces continues as an election campaign is underway.
Magway Region has been a resistance stronghold since the 2021 military coup that ousted the National League for Democracy (NLD) government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel laureate has been held by the military ever since.
After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, forming the People’s Defense Force (PDF), which is now engaged in combat in many areas of the country.
Critics have denounced the election plan as a sham to normalize the military takeover, and several opposition organizations, including armed resistance groups, have said they will try to derail them.
Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, warned last Friday that the ballot would be conducted in an environment “rife with threats and violence” and actively suppressed political participation.
A regime media report said that Wai Lin Htet was detained at 3 p.m. on Saturday by three members of a local resistance group who arrived on two motorbikes, while he was at home with his family in Pakokku Township, Magway Region.
It identified the three as members of the PDF, whose many local and regional forces make up the armed wing of the pro-democracy movement under the National Unity Government (NUG). The unit responsible for his detention wasn’t further identified, and there were no public statements about the action.
The report said that authorities were seeking the arrest of the three under a section of a new electoral law that carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison for detaining a parliamentary candidate and preventing him from conducting election activities.
According to reports, nearly 100 people, including film directors, have been arrested under the election law since it was enacted in July, and some of them have received sentences of up to 49 years in prison.
Sai Ai Pao, the chairperson of the SNDP— also known as the White Tiger Party, and one of six parties contesting the polls nationwide — refused to comment to AP about the incident because of concerns about the candidate’s safety.
The SNDP, once a small ethnic party based in Shan and Kachin states in previous elections, is now competing nationwide with more than 580 candidates, making it the fifth-largest of the six parties competing nationwide. It’s not considered explicitly pro- or anti-military, but its participation in the election gives the impression it is allied with the army.
AP
