Aung San Suu Kyi officially no longer has a party. The Burmese electoral commission, set up by the ruling junta, announced on Tuesday that the National League for Democracy (NLD), its political formation, would be dissolved.
The NLD, which largely won the legislative elections in 2015 and 2020, “will see its status as a political party automatically canceled” from Wednesday, for failing to meet the conditions to re-register, according to state television, which has announced the news.
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.
33 years in prison
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 river trial that rights groups condemned as a sham.