Elections in Myanmar

Myanmar is a unitary republic, with elected representatives at the national state or region levels. On the national level, the president who is the head of state and legislature, is elected indirectly through an Electoral College. According to the 2008 constitution, the term durations of the President, and Cabinet are five years. All elections are regulated by the Union Election Commission.

Myanmar is divided into 330 constituencies, and elections are only held in constituencies where there is more than one candidate. Otherwise, a representative is selected from each constituency with additional 110 seats appointed by the military, These 440 representatives comprise the Pyithu Hluttaw. The Election Commission, a body dominated by the military may decide not to hold elections in certain constituencies where they deem the situation unsafe. The goal of the election is to appoint Members of Assembly in both the upper house (the House of Nationalities) and the lower house (the House of Representatives) of the Assembly of the Union, and State and Region Hluttaws. Ethnic Affairs Ministers were also elected by their designated electorates on the same day, although only select ethnic minorities in particular states and regions are entitled to vote for them.

The country has had 17 general elections since 1922. Following the 2020 elections, in which the National League for Democracy increased its majority, the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's military, claimed the results were invalid. The Tatmadaw deposed democratically elected leaders the day before newly-elected politicians could be sworn in. Democratic elections were forbidden until the ongoing state of emergency ended which was first projected to be on 1 February 2022, later it was extended to 1 February 2023. and as of February 2023, extended by another 6 months.

History

When Ne Win's one party rule system – the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) – collapsed in August 1988 following the 8888 Uprising, the military staged another coup d'etat the following September, stating that they were going to hold "free and fair" elections in 1990. The first elections to the lower house (the Pyithu Hluttaw or "People's Assembly") under the new military administration, renamed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), were held on 27 May 1990.

The major opposition party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory with a majority of 392 out of the 492 seats; thus, under a parliamentary system, the NLD would form a new government. However, the SLORC refused to acknowledge the results, and as a result the People's Assembly never convened.

The military junta placed the leader of the NLD, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, under house arrest following her party's victory. The SLORC was abolished in November 1997 and replaced by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), but this was merely a cosmetic change. In August 2003, Prime Minister Khin Nyunt announced a seven-step "roadmap to democracy", which the government claimed it was in the process of implementing. There was no timetable associated with the government’s plan, or any conditionality or independent mechanism for verifying that it is moving forward, so it was greeted sceptically by observers.

On 7 February 2008, SPDC announced that a referendum for the new Constitution would be held, and elections by 2010. The constitutional referendum was held on 10 May. Following this the first general election in 20 years was held in 2010, completing the fifth step of the roadmap to democracy, though the NLD was excluded from participating in it as the Election Commission declared them "null and void" in accordance with election laws. The NLD, were however, allowed to participate in the 2012 by-elections that followed, and Suu Kyi - released from house arrest in 2010 - won a seat in the Pyithu Hluttaw.

In 2015 general election, the National League for Democracy won an absolute majority of seats, taking 86 percent of the seats in the Assembly of the Union well more than the 67 percent supermajority needed to ensure that its preferred candidates will be elected president and first vice president.

Latest elections

House of Nationalities

House of Representatives

Notes

References

External links

Adam Carr's Election ArchiveAudio Interview with Mr. Kyaw Zwa Moe, managing editor of Irrawady News Media on Burma and Elections
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{{Burma (Myanmar) topics