The Union Solidarity and Development Party ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုကြံ့ခိုင်ရေးနှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးပါတီ;

abbr. An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

USDP) is a political party in

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, registered on 2 June 2010 by the Union Election Commission and currently standing as the largest opposition party in the bicameral

Assembly of the Union The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စု လွှတ်တော် lit. Assembly of the Union) is the ''de jure'' national-level bicameral legislature of Myanmar (officially known as the ''Republic of the Union of My ...

. It is the successor to the formerly ruling military junta's mass organisation, the

Union Solidarity and Development Association The Union Solidarity and Development Association ( ; abbreviated USDA) was a Burmese political party founded with the active aid of Myanmar's ruling military junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), on 15 September 1993. Hi ...

. The party was headed by President Thein Sein until 2013, and its headquarters are in

Naypyidaw Naypyidaw, officially spelled Nay Pyi Taw (; ), is the capital and third-largest city of Myanmar. The city is located at the centre of the Naypyidaw Union Territory. It is unusual among Myanmar's cities, as it is an entirely planned city o ...

's Dekkhinathiri Township. It is known for its close ties with the military and most of the party officials are former military personnel. The party supported the

2021 Myanmar coup d'état A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw—Myanmar's military—which then ves ...

, as well as the military junta during the subsequent protests by the public. In the 2010 general election, the USDP won 883 seats out of 1154 total seats, 259 seats of 325 seats from

Pyithu Hluttaw The Pyithu Hluttaw ( my, ပြည်သူ့ လွှတ်တော်, ; House of Representatives) is the ''de jure'' lower house of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, the bicameral legislature of Myanmar (Burma). It consists of 440 members, of whic ...

, 129 seats of 168 seats from

Amyotha Hluttaw The Amyotha Hluttaw ( my, အမျိုးသားလွှတ်တော်, ; House of Nationalities) is the ''de jure'' upper house of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, the bicameral legislature of Myanmar (Burma). It consists of 224 members ...

and 495 seats of 661 seats from Region and State Hluttaw (holding the majority in all, except the Rakhine State Hluttaw). On 4 March 2011, two USDP MPs from

Bago Region Bago Region ( my, ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Pegu Division and Bago Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the southern central part of the country. It is bordered by Magway Region a ...

, Ant Gyi, a Pyithu Hluttaw MP representing Thanatpin Township, and Cho Nwe Oo, representing Constituency 7 ( Oktwin and

Htantabin Township Htantabin Township ( my, ထန်းတပင် မြို့နယ်, ) is a township located on the western border of central Yangon Region, Burma (Myanmar). Its administrative seat is Htantabin which is located in the southeastern part ...

s) were disqualified by the Union Electoral Commission for failing to meet the constitutional requirements for

citizenship Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

(as both have a parent who are not Burmese citizens). Following the

National League for Democracy The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanmar (Burma). It ...

(NLD) victory in the

2020 Myanmar general election General elections were held in Myanmar on 8 November 2020. Voting occurred in all constituencies, excluding seats appointed by or reserved for the military, to elect members to both the upper house - Amyotha Hluttaw (the House of Nationalitie ...

, the USDP accused the NLD of electoral fraud, formally challenged the election outcome and called for the election to be re-run. The USDP subsequently supported the

and assumed two seats on the State Administration Council.

Leadership

On 2 May 2011,

Shwe Mann '' Thura'' Shwe Mann ( my, သူရ ရွှေမန်း, ; born 11 July 1947) is a Burmese politician who was Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw, the lower house of parliament from 31 January 2011 to 29 January 2016.Freeman, A. & Roads, J"Myanm ...

assumed the office as temporary chairman of USDP. Htay Oo as deputy chairman,

Aung Thaung Aung Thaung ( my, အောင်သောင်း; 1 December 1940 – 23 July 2015) was a Burmese politician and businessman. He served as a member of the country's lower house, the Pyithu Hluttaw, representing the constituency of Taungtha Town ...

and

Thein Zaw Thein Zaw ( my, သိန်းဇော်; born 5 May 1994) is a footballer from Burma, and a defender for Myanmar national football team. Club career He currently plays for Zwekapin United in Myanmar National League, and formally played for ...

as Secretary 1 and 2. Maung Oo was appointed as Disciplinary Official of the USDP. Former Yangon Mayor Aung Thein Lin was appointed to lead the USDP's Yangon branch. On 16 October 2012, Thein Sein was re-elected as the chairman of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) at the USDP's first party conference in

. This is in direct contradiction to the 2008 Constitution of Burma, which states: As of October 2022, USDP leadership is as follows: * Chairman: Khin Yi * Vice-Chairman: Myat Hein * General Secretary: Maung Maung Thein * Joint General Secretary: Thein Zaw * Secretary:

Khin Aung Myint Khin Aung Myint ( my, ခင်အောင်မြင့်) is a Burma, Burmese politician and incumbent Amyotha Hluttaw Member of Parliament, MP for Mandalay Region № 8 constituency. He previously served as Speaker of the House of Nationaliti ...

* Secretary: Thein Swe * Secretary: Aung Ko Because of mounting criticism over his dual role, Thein Sein handed over the position of USDP chairman to

on 1 May 2013. On 13 August 2015 it was reported that chairman Shwe Mann and general secretary Maung Maung Thein had been removed from their positions. On 12 September 2022, Than Htay resigned as the party chairman and handed over immediately to Vice Chairman Khin Yi, the latter became Acting Chairman. On 5 October 2022, Khin Yi was elected as the new Chairman and officially assumed the party chairmanship.

Election results

House of Nationalities (Amyotha Hluttaw)

House of Representatives (Pyithu Hluttaw)

References

External links

Official website of the Union Solidarity and Development Party
{{Myanma political parties Political parties in Myanmar 2010 establishments in Myanmar Nationalist parties in Asia Social conservative parties National conservative parties Political parties established in 2010 Far-right political parties Far-right politics in Myanmar Internal conflict in Myanmar