As junta boss Min Aung Hlaing steps up talk of an election, a former 88 Generation leader, U Ko Ko Gyi, opened the new head office of his People’s Party in Yangon on Saturday.
The 63-year-old was a prominent student leader in the pro-democracy uprising of 1988, for which he was imprisoned for almost two decades by the previous regime. After failing to make the National League for Democracy (NLD)’s 2015 election candidate list, he formed the People’s Party in 2018 under the now-ousted NLD government, with the stated purpose of serving the interests of Myanmar people.
Following the military coup in 2021, U Ko Ko Gyi announced he would continue the political struggle by non-violent means. Together with various pro-military political parties, he endorsed the junta’s proposed election.
Min Aung Hlaing has yet to announce a date for the vote despite frequently vowing to hold an election and hand over power to the winner.
Opposition forces at home and abroad, including the US and other democracies, have denounced the poll plan as a sham designed to cement the military’s grip on power.
Doubts have also been raised over how the junta could hold an election when growing swathes of the country are under the control of resistance forces.
As the junta continued to lose ground amid intense fighting in Shan, Rakhine, Karenni (Kayah) and Chin states and Sagaing Region, U Ko Ko Gyi told Saturday’s ceremony: “It’s okay for family members to fight, but don’t burn the house down.”
Also present at the ceremony were expelled NLD committee member Daw Sandar Min, Arakan Front Party chair Dr. Aye Maung, and former Yangon Region lawmaker Daw Nyo Nyo Thin.
The NLD expelled Daw Sandar Min in March last year, accusing her of collaborating with the junta. She and Dr. Aye Maung flew to Japan in October to promote the junta-proposed election as a way out of the country’s crisis.
The People’s Party contested 143 seats in national and sub-national parliaments at the 2020 election but failed to win a single seat. U Ko Ko Gyi applied to re-register his party with the junta-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC) last year. The UEC has dissolved major pro-democracy parties, including the NLD and Shan Nationalities League for Democracy.
The People’s Party was officially registered on December 29. A week later, U Ko Ko Gyi was at a dinner hosted by the regime to mark the country’s Independence Day on Jan. 4. There, he shook hands with junta boss Min Aung Hlaing, who in 2022 had ordered the execution of his former 88 Generation colleague Ko Jimmy, along with three other pro-democracy activists. U Ko Ko Gyi then attended a meeting between Min Aung Hlaing and political parties on Jan. 6.
Before that, he attended the anniversary of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement organized by Min Aung Hlaing, despite widespread opposition to the event among Myanmar people and resistance forces.
Under the new Political Parties Registration Law, the People’s Party has to open offices in at least half of the country’s 330 townships in six months, and recruit 100,000 members in three months.
The People’s Party had only 3,294 members and eight party offices in 2022, according to UEC data. It now faces an uphill battle to recruit some 97,000 party members by April, and open offices in more than 100 townships in the first half of the year.
