Exactly three years ago today, Myanmar held a general election in which more than 27 million people—over 70 percent of eligible voters—cast ballots.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory securing 920 (or 82 percent) of the 1,117 available seats in Parliament.
The military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was soundly defeated, picking up just 71 seats—a bitter disappointment for both the party and the military that would lead them to claim that the election was unfair and that the results should be invalidated. Domestic and international observers, however, said the polls were free and fair.
Then, early on the morning of Feb. 1—just as the MPs-elect were preparing for the opening of the new parliamentary session—came the coup, after which the junta annulled the results of the poll.
Instead of taking their parliamentary seats, elected MPs found themselves in custody or in hiding and in revolt against the junta, which ignored the wishes of millions of voters.
Over 140 Union Parliament and regional lawmakers have been arrested, hundreds forced to flee their homes and at least three killed in the junta’s custody. At least 18 other lawmakers have also lost their lives due to illness while in hiding because they were unable to access adequate medical care.
Almost all of the persecuted lawmakers were from the NLD. The regime has targeted the winning party’s lawmakers and members, along with those of 86 other parties, with arrest, violence and legal persecution. One former lawmaker, Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, was executed by the junta in the country’s first use of capital punishment in decades.
In March of this year, the regime dissolved the party for failing to reregister under a tough new electoral law drafted by the military as part of its preparations for a new election. From the outset, the NLD and other pro-democracy parties dismissed the slated election as a sham and said they would boycott it.
According to the NLD’s Central Working Committee, a total of 1,910 party members have been arrested, of whom 141 are elected lawmakers. To date, at least 71 elected lawmakers remain in detention. A total of 101 party members have been killed including three elected lawmakers. Additionally, some 182 elected lawmakers have had their properties seized by junta troops.
In an announcement marking the third anniversary of the election, the NLD said it will continue to fulfill its responsibilities, and work with ethnic forces and allied organizations against the military coup to build a federal democratic union.
Elected lawmakers slain
In June last year, junta troops arrested elected NLD lawmaker U Kyaw Myo Min along with two other party members.
U Kyaw Myo Min, 55, the NLD chair for Bilin Township, was elected to the Mon State parliament in the 2020 general election. He went into hiding after the regime issued an arrest warrant and opened incitement and terrorism cases against him over his participation in anti-coup protests.
More than a week after his detention, U Kyaw Moe Min was found tortured to death near a village in Bilin. The two party members were also found dead earlier.
With a rope around his neck and his hands tied behind his back, U Kyaw Myo Min’s body was found covered in bushes in a drain near where the bodies of the two slain NLD members with whom the lawmaker was detained were discovered.
Elected NLD lawmaker U Nyunt Shwe, who was also a chair of the party’s Bago Township office, died of COVID-19 in August 2021 while detained, due to a lack of adequate medical care in prison. The MP, who won races for his Bago seat in the 2015 and 2020 general elections, was known for his passionate work on behalf of his constituents.
Maung Dee, 72, elected lawmaker from Waw Township in Bago Region, died on July 17 after being transferred to Bago Hospital due to ill health, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group.
Detained elected leaders
Elected State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Union President U Win Myint, state and regional chief ministers and ministers of the ousted NLD government were among those detained when the military staged the coup on Feb. 1, 2021.
In the 2020 vote, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was re-elected to her Union Parliament seat in her constituency of Kawhmu Township, Yangon Region. Following her arrest on Feb. 1, she was sentenced to 33 years in prison for a multitude of alleged offenses in a series of closed trials held by the military regime. She denies any wrongdoing. The regime cut six years from her sentence as part of a general amnesty in early August.
U Win Myint was also re-elected to a Union Parliament seat in his constituency of Tamwe Township, Yangon Region. He was jailed on charges of alleged incitement, violation of COVID-19 rules and corruption after what was widely condemned as kangaroo court hearings following the coup.
The junta initially sentenced him to 12 years in prison but cut it to eight years in August.
Among the detained elected lawmakers are chief ministers and ministers of the ousted NLD government who were re-elected in their respective constituencies.
Almost all of them were handed lengthy imprisonment terms on various charges. Prominent examples include Mandalay Chief Minister U Zaw Myint Maung, who received a total sentence of 29 years’ imprisonment, U Aung Moe Nyo, chief minister of Magwe Region, who was sentenced to 20 years in total, and Karen State Chief Minister Nan Khin Htwe Myint, who was sentenced to a total of 80 years in prison.
Additionally, Shan State Planning and Finance Minister U Soe Nyunt Lwin was handed 54 years’ imprisonment on several charges, and Karen State Finance and Development Minister U Than Naing was sentenced to 92 years on alleged corruption and incitement charges.
MPs handed long terms
More than a dozen detained elected lawmakers have been sentenced to lengthy terms of longer than 10 years on various charges, especially alleged violations of the Counter-Terrorism Law.
Among them are NLD elected lawmaker U Kyaw Min Hlaing, who won a Union Parliament seat in Ottarathiri Township in Naypyitaw before being sentenced to 45 years’ imprisonment; NLD elected regional lawmaker U Kyaw Zay Ya from Bago Region’s Pyay Township, sentenced to 39 years; NLD elected Union Parliament lawmaker U Wai Linn Aung from Myaungmya Township of Ayeyarwady Region, sentenced to 38 years; and elected NLD Union Parliament lawmaker U Tun Tun Hein of Shan State’s Nawnghkio, jailed for 33 years.
