The Mon National Party is one of two major ethnic Mon parties to compete in the 2015 election, and in some cases it will go head to head with incumbent candidates from the All Mon Region Democracy Party (AMDP) after the MNP boycotted the 2010 national election, ceding political space to the AMDP.

The 2010 boycott means the party has no sitting members of Parliament, though it claims a membership of more than 50,000 people and a defection from the AMDP means it also has one sitting cabinet member, the Mon ethnic affairs minister for Karen State. Its forerunner, the Mon National Democratic Front, contested Burma’s abortive 1990 election, winning five seats in a poll that was annulled by the military.

In an interview with The Irrawaddy earlier this year, party chairman Nai Ngwe Thein indicated that the fundamental difference between the MNP and AMDP was that his party believed the country’s 2008 Constitution should be scrapped entirely, while the AMDP favored making amendments to the existing charter. In a subsequent state media broadcast detailing the MNP platform, however, the party said it would be open to either option.

In terms of its platform, the MNP has offered many of the same platitudes as other opposition parties have put forward, including support for a federal system based on national equality, multiparty democracy and self-determination; democratic and human rights for all; and achieving a lasting peace between the central government and Burma’s ethnic armed groups.

* States and divisions in red indicate that the party is fielding candidates at the Union or regional level in that jurisdiction.