Asean to assess developments in Myanmar after polls: Anwar

[KUALA LUMPUR] Asean will assess developments in Myanmar, following the first phase of elections and avoid actions that would “confer premature legitimacy” to any party, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Tuesday (Dec 30).

His comments came as Myanmar’s dominant pro-military party claimed an overwhelming victory in the first phase of the elections, after democracy watchdogs warned the junta-run poll would only entrench military rule.

The armed forces snatched power in a 2021 coup that triggered civil war, but on Dec 28, opened voting in a phased month-long election that they pledged would return power to the people.

Anwar – whose country holds the rotating chair of Asean until the end of the year – said leaders from the 11-nation regional bloc, which includes Myanmar, would continue to “consider developments with care, including steps underway relating to the political process” in Myanmar.

“Any assessment will proceed in a sequenced manner, guided by the need to reduce violence, avoid actions that could deepen divisions or confer premature legitimacy and preserve the possibility of an inclusive and credible pathway forward,” he told reporters.

Campaigners, Western diplomats and the United Nation’s rights chief condemned the vote, citing a crackdown on dissent and a candidate list stacked with military allies likely to prolong the armed forces’ rule.

Pro-democracy guerrillas, and ethnic minority armies opposing the military, have pledged to block the election from the patchwork territories they have carved out in the war.

Official results have yet to be posted, but a senior official of the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) said on Monday that they had won 82 of the 102 Lower House seats contested on Sunday.

Two more phases of voting are scheduled for Jan 11 and Jan 25.

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At the last poll in 2020, the USDP was trounced by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which was dissolved after the coup and did not appear on ballots in this election.

The Nobel laureate has been in detention since the putsch.

Many analysts describe the USDP as a military proxy, set to entrench the power of the armed forces in civilian guise. AFP