Myanmar’s junta ended the country’s state of emergency on Thursday, ramping up preparations for a December election being boycotted by opposition groups and criticized by international monitors.
The military declared a state of emergency in February 2021 as it deposed the civilian government of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a many-sided civil war which has claimed thousands of lives, AFP reported.
The order gave junta Chief Min Aung Hlaing supreme power over the legislature, executive and judiciary — but he has recently touted elections as an off-ramp to the conflict.
Opposition groups including ex-lawmakers ousted in the coup have pledged to snub the poll, which a UN expert last month dismissed as “a fraud” designed to legitimize the military’s continuing rule.
“The state of emergency is abolished today in order for the country to hold elections on the path to a multi-party democracy,” junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said in a voice message shared with reporters.
“Elections will be held within six months,” he added.
Analysts predict Min Aung Hlaing will keep a role as either president or armed forces chief following the election and consolidate power in that office, thereby extending his tenure as de facto ruler.
“We have already passed the first chapter,” Min Aung Hlaing said in a speech in Naypyidaw reported in state newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar on Thursday.
“Now, we are starting the second chapter,” he told members of the junta’s administration council at what the newspaper called an “honorary ceremony” for its members.
“The upcoming election will be held this December, and efforts will be made to enable all eligible voters to cast their ballots,” the newspaper reported, paraphrasing another part of his speech.
No exact date for the poll has yet been announced by the junta, but political parties are being registered while training sessions on electronic voting machines have already taken place.
On Wednesday, the military government said it enacted a new law dictating prison sentences up to 10 years for speech or protests aiming to “destroy a part of the electoral process.”
But a census held last year as preparation for the election estimated it failed to collect data from 19 million of the country’s 51 million people, provisional results said.
The results cited “significant security constraints” as one reason for the shortfall — giving a sign of how limited the reach of the election may be amid the civil war.
Analysts have predicted rebels will stage offensives around the election as a sign of their opposition.
But this month the junta begun offering cash rewards to those willing to lay down their arms and “return to the legal fold” ahead of the vote.