NLD Expels Four Members for Collaborating With Myanmar Junta
By The Irrawaddy 3 March 2023
Myanmar’s ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) on Friday expelled its central executive committee member and former Yangon chief minister U Phyo Min Thein along with three central committee members for defying the will of the people and NLD policies by backing the terrorist regime’s sham election.
The three central committee members dismissed are Daw Sandar Min, U Toe Lwin and U Win Myint Aung.
The NLD said in a statement that it has received strong evidence that they are working out of self-interest while pleasing the military dictator and misusing the name of the party.
U Phyo Min Thein and former Yangon Regional lawmaker Daw Sandar Min recently made headlines for betraying the party.
U Phyo Min Thien testified against State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in a corruption case filed by the junta, claiming that he gave her seven viss (around 11.4kg) of gold and US$600,000 in 2017 and 2018. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said his claims were “totally absurd”. The jailed leader was quoted saying: “The allegations are completely false. I had no reason to take it, no reason to accept it.”
Later he was let off with a fine and released, the only arrested NLD chief minister to be freed.
Fellow central committee member Daw Sandar Min, who reportedly has close ties to junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun and other high-ranking military officers, visited Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in prison to ask her to back the junta’s plan for a general election this year.
She is one of the few NLD members who is looking to run in the junta election. Most NLD members have been in hiding since the 2021 coup and many have been killed by the junta.
The other person at the meeting might have been U Toe Lwin, the deputy chairman of the NLD in Ayeyarwady Region, who was also dismissed on Friday.
The NLD statement said the central working committee was expelling members who defied party policies.
The party said it had followed the will of the people since its formation in 1988 and the committee was managing the party while most of the leadership was in prison.
It said the four members, “have been suspended from all duties assigned to them by the party, as well as permanently expelled from the party and that their communication and activities have nothing to do with the NLD”.
Since the 2021 coup, 84 NLD members have been killed, including two lawmakers, and 1,583 arrested, according to the NLD with more than 1,200 still under detention.
