The announcement was made on state television. The Burmese electoral commission, set up by the ruling junta, announced on Tuesday March 28 that the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, was to be dissolved.
The NLD, which largely won the legislative elections in 2015 and 2020, “will have its status as a political party automatically cancelled” from Wednesday, failing to fulfill the conditions to re-register, according to MRTV.
Burma has been in chaos since the military toppled the civilian government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 over disputed allegations of electoral fraud.
Military repression
The army in power has since promised to organize a national election. But the military, who initially planned to hold elections before August, put forward security and logistical reasons for delaying the deadline, in a country plagued by a violent civil conflict which partly escapes under their control.
According to a local organization, more than 3,100 people have been killed in the military crackdown on dissent since the coup. More than a million people have been displaced by the fighting, according to the United Nations.
In December, the junta sentenced the former head of government to 33 years in prison in a raging trial that rights groups condemned as a sham.