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General Min Aung Hlaing to lead an 11-member commission to supervise the elections, expected in December.
Published On 31 Jul 2025
Myanmar’s military government has declared the end of a state of emergency as it ramps up plans for elections, which opposition groups have pledged to boycott and monitors warn will be used to consolidate the military’s hold on power under leader Min Aung Hlaing.
Military government spokesman Zaw Min Tun made the announcement on Thursday, four and a half years after the military deposed the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup, sparking a multisided civil war that has killed thousands of people.
“The state of emergency is abolished today in order for the country to hold elections on the path to a multiparty democracy,” Zaw Min Tun said in a voice message shared with reporters.
“Elections will be held within six months,” he added. No exact date has been announced.
An order signed by General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the February 2021 coup, cancelled the emergency rule that handed power to him as the armed forces chief, instead returning it to the head of state.
However, Min Aung Hlaing, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity against the Muslim Rohingya minority, also occupies the position of head of state as acting president, so the order he signed essentially gives him the same powers to determine when the elections will be held and which parties may take part in the process.
“We have already passed the first chapter,” Min Aung Hlaing was quoted by The Global New Light of Myanmar, a government-owned newspaper, as saying.
“Now, we are starting the second chapter,” he told members of the military government’s administration council at what the newspaper called an “honorary ceremony” for its members.
On Thursday, state broadcaster MRTV also reported that the general will lead the 11-member commission that will supervise the election.
Min Aung Hlaing has recently touted elections as an offramp from the conflict.
Opposition groups, including former lawmakers ousted in the coup, have pledged to snub the poll, which a United Nations expert last month dismissed as “a fraud” designed to legitimise the military’s continuing rule.
The military seized power after making unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 elections, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate remains jailed along with the party’s other top leaders.
Analysts predicted that despite the promised elections, Min Aung Hlaing will likely keep his role as either president or armed forces chief and will consolidate power in that office, thereby extending his tenure as de facto ruler.
A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said Beijing supports “Myanmar’s various parties and factions properly resolving differences through political means under the constitutional and legal framework”.
Political parties are currently being registered while training sessions on electronic voting machines have already taken place.
Source:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
