Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing said that the situation in Myanmar is under control and the junta will do all in its power to hold elections next year as long as they are guaranteed to be free from foreign interference.
The comments were made in a rare interview with Min Aung Hlaing by the Russian news agency RIA and reported by Reuters.
"We promised that we would hold elections in the near future, and we are trying with all our might to fulfill this," said Min Aung Hlaing according to Reuters.
"In addition, elections must be held without external pressure, otherwise they will not be fair and transparent. And we will carry out our own elections without external pressure.”
After the February 2021 coup the junta annulled the November 2020 elections, which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party won in a landslide, winning 82 per cent of the seats as compared to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) which won only 6.4 percent of the seats.
The election was annulled by the junta-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC). It said that the election did not comply with the country’s constitution and electoral laws, and was not free and fair, despite many international observers saying the elections had been free and fair.
According to Reuters, Min Aung Hlaing also claimed that despite Western nations funding and arming “terrorists” in the country the junta has the situation under control saying: “Last year there were many more incidents, they were of a greater magnitude. Since April of this year, their number and scale have been decreasing, albeit gradually, but significantly.”
This claim is repudiated in a 5 September report entitled Effective Control in Myanmar by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a group of independent international experts. They claim that the junta only completely controls 22 percent of 330 townships, equivalent to 17 percent of Myanmar’s land area.
In their opinion: “The junta does not have effective control of Myanmar. It neither has full control of the country’s territory nor of its people.
“It is unable to effectively administer the functions of government and shows no signs of establishing a permanent order. The military’s strategy to gain control is focused on committing mass atrocities and causing humanitarian suffering amongst the civilian population.”
The interview with Min Aung Hlaing was held in Russia where he is attending one of the only regional summits the junta have been invited to. Recently, as international condemnation of the Myanmar junta has increased, it has turned more towards Russia, one of the main suppliers of arms to the junta, for diplomatic support.
A handout image made available by TASS Host Photo Agency shows Chairman of the State Administrative Council, Prime Minister of the Provisional Government, and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Myanmar Min Aung Hlaing attends a plenary session of the 2022 Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, Russia, 07 September 2022. Photo: EPA
