Myanmar Junta 'likely' To Hold Polls In 2025: Party Officials

Yangon, Myanmar, Sept 5 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Sep, 2023 ) :Myanmar's junta will likely hold elections in 2025, officials from military-sanctioned political parties told AFP on Tuesday.

"Elections are likely to be held in 2025," a senior member of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party told AFP. A member of another junta-approved party confirmed the news.

Thirty-six political parties have been granted permission to take part in any future polls, the junta-stacked election commission said Tuesday, without giving a date for when they would be held.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing called for "necessary preparations" to be completed ahead of a national census in 2024, the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Saturday.

An election can only take place after a census has been completed, the paper reported him as saying.

The United States has said any elections under the junta would be a "sham" and analysts say they would be targeted by the junta's opponents.

The military justified its February 2021 coup with unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud in 2020 elections won resoundingly by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.