Myanmar’s ruling military extended a state of emergency for another six months on Friday four years after it ousted an elected government in a coup, plunging the country into war.
Members of the National Defense and Security Council unanimously agreed to the extension, which puts off the junta’s often-delayed plan for a general election until the second half of the year at the earliest.
Myanmar’s constitution mandates that elections must be held within six months after a state of emergency is lifted.
“There are still more tasks to be done to hold the general election successfully. Especially for a free and fair election, stability and peace is still needed,” state-run media cited the junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, as telling the military council meeting.
Ethnic minority insurgent groups battling for self-determination and allied pro-democracy fighters have dismissed the junta’s plan for an election as window-dressing to bolster the military’s legitimacy at home and abroad.
The military controls about half the country after major advances by insurgent forces over the past year and the country’s most popular politician, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been jailed since the military ousted her elected government on Feb. 1, 2021.
The junta has repeatedly extended the emergency since then.
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Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, which swept elections in 2015 and 2020, has been dissolved under military regulations and thousands of its members and supporters are in jail or have fled to rebel zones or into self-exile.
The chairman of Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority rebel force, the Karen National Union, reiterated on Friday the group’s opposition to an election organized by the military.
China, which has major investments in Myanmar and is keen to see an end to its turmoil, supports the vote and has offered help to organize it, as have some of Myanmar’s Southeast Asian neighbors.
Myanmar’s economy had been in freefall since the 2021 coup.
The United Nations says about 3.5 million people have been displaced by conflict and natural disasters while the World Food Programme said this week some 15 million people in Myanmar are expected to face hunger this year.
Edited by RFA Staff.