Myanmar army dissolves Aung San Suu Kyi's political party

Myanmar's junta-dominated election commission declared that Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party will be disbanded for failing to re-register under a strict new military-drafted electoral legislation.

The military justified their February 2021 coup with false charges of extensive fraud in the NLD-won 2020 elections, thereby terminating a 10-year democratic experiment and throwing the country into chaos.

In January, it granted political parties two months to re-register under a rigorous new electoral legislation drafted by the military in preparation for new elections that it has pledged to organise but that critics say would be neither free nor fair.

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Out of 90 existing parties only 50 had applied to re-register under the new rules, state broadcaster MRTV said. The rest would be dissolved from Wednesday.

Suu Kyi co-founded the National League for Democracy in 1988 and achieved a landslip win in the 1990 elections that were later invalidated by the then-junta.

In elections in 2015 and 2020, the NLD carried the torch for democratic ambitions in military-ruled Myanmar, winning devastating victories over military-backed parties.

The junta's brutal campaign on the opposition has destroyed its leadership, with one former lawmaker murdered by the military in the country's first application of death punishment in decades.

Several exile leaders have already urged the party not to re-register under the new conditions.

The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party had applied to re-register, according to a junta statement.