Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing commits to hold elections by year's end

Myanmar's military chief has used a speech at the annual Armed Forces Day to reaffirm plans to hold a general election by the end of the year and call on opposition groups fighting the army to join in party politics and the electoral process.

Min Aung Hlaing said his military government was preparing to hold an election in December and that it will be conducted according to the security conditions in the country's different regions, where armed conflicts are often playing out.

He spoke before more than 7,000 military personnel, held in the capital Naypyidaw.

Rifle-bearing servicemen and women stood to attention as the general reviewed their ranks from the back of an open vehicle.

They then marched past him in order, saluting him as fighter jets flew overhead, firing off flares into the night sky.

Seizing power

The 2021 military coup which ousted democratically-elected State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has been met with widespread opposition, sparking widespread protests and triggering an armed resistance which has plunged much of the country into conflict.

The military junta has since said an election was the primary goal but has repeatedly pushed back the date.

The plan for a general election is widely seen as an attempt to legitimise the military’s seizure of power through the ballot box and to deliver a result that ensures the generals retain control.

In his speech, Min Aung Hlaing also tried to justify the overthrow of Suu Kyi's elected government with familiar but widely discredited accusations of it failing to investigate irregularities in the November 2020 general election and repeating that his government would hold "a free and fair election" and hand over power afterward.

The country's current security situation, with the military believed to control less than half the country, poses a serious challenge to holding elections.

Critics have already said the military-planned ballot will be neither free nor fair because there is no free media and most of the leaders of Suu Kyi's popular but now dissolved National League for Democracy party have been arrested.

Suu Kyi is serving prison sentences totalling 27 years after being convicted in a series of prosecutions widely seen as politically motivated.

The 80th anniversary of Armed Forces Day marks the day in 1945 when the army of Myanmar, then known as Burma, began its fight against occupying Japanese forces who had taken over after driving out the British.

Min Aung Hlaing, during a visit to Belarus earlier this month, announced the time frame for the election.

He said then that 53 political parties have already submitted their lists to participate in the election.

State media reported that he reiterated the election plans at an official meeting on Tuesday, though the reports were unclear on whether the vote would be held in the last two weeks of December, the first two weeks of January or over a period extending for those four weeks.

Separately, state-run MRTV television reported that Min Aung Hlaing had granted amnesty to seven foreign prisoners, including four Thais jailed in the southern coastal town of Kawthaung who will be deported.

It is not unusual for amnesties for prisoners to be announced on state or religious holidays.