Myanmar’s military junta announced on Monday that it has further extended the country’s longstanding state of emergency that it imposed when it first seized power more than two years ago.
Latest Extension
MRTV television channel said the National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) met in Naypyitaw on Monday and decided on the extension by another six months, effective from Tuesday, because the government needs time to prepare for the elections.
While the NDSC is nominally a constitutional government body, it is in practice, controlled by the military.
The decision was announced by acting President Myint Swe, after junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing briefed the meeting on ongoing conflicts and security conditions in the country.
Myanmar's junta extends state of emergency by six months, signalling a delay to elections they had pledged to hold as the military battles anti-coup fighters across the country pic.twitter.com/a0j4LATTNR
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) July 31, 2023
The announcement came as a veiled admission that despite its vast manpower and weapons, the junta does not yet exercise enough control to hold the polls and that it has also failed to subdue the overwhelming civilian opposition to its rule, including increasingly challenging armed resistance, nonviolent protests, and civil disobedience.
The state of emergency was imposed on 1 February 2021, when troops arrested the democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other top officials from her government and members of her National League for Democracy party.
Elections to Return to Civilian Rule
Since then, the junta has extended the emergency and further delayed the holding of elections to revert to civilian rule on at least four occasions to elongate its own reign of power.
The latest extension means that the elections to install a civilian government will not take place at most until next August, as a general election must be held within six months of the state of emergency being lifted.
It is not yet clear when the polls might be held. The junta has only said that they would take place after the goals of the state of emergency are accomplished.