Myanmar’s military-appointed prime minister on Friday claimed ASEAN “understands and supports” planned elections in the country, despite the bloc’s repeated insistence that ending violence and inclusive dialogue must come before any polls.
Nyo Saw was speaking at the 31st ASEAN Transport Ministers’ Meeting, which despite the junta’s quasi-pariah status was being held in Naypyitaw this week.
A military business supremo who plans to run in the sparsely populated island constituency of Cocokyun, Nyo Saw expressed “appreciation for the ASEAN community’s understanding, support, and positive engagement regarding Myanmar’s election.”
However, the regional grouping has never formally expressed support for the year-end polls, which have been widely derided as a sham.
In a non-committal announcement late last month, ASEAN said member states had been invited to send observer missions and stressed that elections must be free, fair, transparent, and inclusive. But it has not formally committed to backing or monitoring the vote, scheduled in just over a month.
Some individual member states—Thailand, Laos and Cambodia—have signaled support, however, while Indonesia’s president has said ASEAN should send observers.
The transport ministers’ meeting was a low-key affair that highlighted the Myanmar junta’s uneasy status within the bloc.
While it was attended by ASEAN’s ceremonial secretary-general, Kao Kim Hourn, his talks with Myanmar’s Transport and Communications Minister Mya Tun Oo were billed as a “pull-aside” in official communiques because any official sit-down meeting would go against current protocol.
In October, Foreign Minister Than Swe told his visiting Malaysian counterpart to reinstate Myanmar’s role and entitlements in ASEAN, saying that it was no longer “appropriate” to exclude the country. Yet junta boss Min Aung Hlaing was barred from the Kuala Lumpur summit.
The bloc said Myanmar’s generals would remain barred from summits until progress is made on its Five-Point Consensus, which calls for an immediate end to violence and inclusive dialogue.
The regime later accused ASEAN of undermining unity by sidelining Myanmar, while junta spokesman Gen. Zaw Min Tun went further, claiming on Oct. 29 that the Five-Point Consensus was not a legitimate outcome of the 2021 ASEAN Summit in Indonesia but imposed afterward.
Elsewhere condemnation is growing. On Thursday, a UN General Assembly committee warned that the election could intensify conflict, while U.S. lawmakers described it as a sham designed to confer false legitimacy on a junta propped up by China and Russia.
