YANGON: “Myanmar Junta Extends State of Emergency by 6 Months”, Myanmar’s junta on Wednesday (Jul 31) extended the state of emergency by six months, again delaying fresh polls it has promised to hold as it battles opposition to its coup.
The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the February 2021 coup which ended a 10-year experiment with democracy and sparked mass protests and a crackdown on dissent.
Three years and a half years later, the junta is struggling to crush widespread armed opposition and recently suffered a series of stunning losses to an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups.
The junta had been unable to hold fresh polls as planned following an initial two-year state of emergency “due to the terrorist acts” by its opponents, broadcaster MRTV reported.
All the members of the junta-stacked National Defence and Security Council “unanimously decided to extend the period of the state of emergency for another six months”, MRTV said.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing had proposed the extension “in order to prepare valid and accurate ballots” for the election the junta has promised to hold, possibly in 2025.
The extension was also needed to “carry out the population census and in order to continue the implementation of the work to be done”, MRTV said.
Under the military-drafted 2008 constitution, which the junta has said is still in force, authorities are required to hold fresh elections within six months of a state of emergency being lifted.
The military seized power after making unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in the 2020 elections which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide.
It has extended the state of emergency multiple times since as it battles established ethnic minority armed groups and newer pro-democracy “People’s Defence Forces”.
