R&I – FS
Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing has reiterated the military’s pledge to hold new elections, repeating the claim of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 poll, in remarks published in state media a year after the generals seized power.
The armed forces chief did not give a specific date for the elections – he has previously suggested 2023 – but told a meeting of the National Defence and Security Council that they would take place when the situation was “peaceful and stable” and the state of emergency had ended, according to the report on the Global New Light of Myanmar.
He repeated accusations of electoral fraud during the 2020 elections, which were won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) in a landslide. The military used that claim as a pretext for removing Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, 2021, and she now faces a raft of charges from corruption to violations of the official secrets act and electoral fraud.
The elections commission previously said there was no evidence of wrongdoing in the 2020 poll, but Min Aung Hlaing said the “scrutiny of the Tatmadaw”, as the military styles itself, had found “10,482,116 voting frauds (more than one-fourth of voters)”, according to the report.
JW
Article URL : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/1/myanmar-coup-military-repeats-election-promise-people-strike