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The former ruling party of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was one of 40 political parties dissolved today after they failed to meet a registration deadline for elections expected to extend the military junta's rule, it said. BTA.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) is among dozens of parties that have held seats in parliament over the past decade but have been significantly weakened by the 2021 military coup and crackdown by the junta.

Many of the parties are unable or unwilling to participate in the elections, which have been widely dismissed by a number of critics as fraudulent.

The EU has sharply criticized yet another verdict by a Myanmar court against Aung San Suu Kyi

Myanmar's military junta-appointed electoral commission said in a statement on state-run MRTV today that 63 parties had registered to run in local or national elections, and named 40 parties that were automatically dissolved as they did not participate in the vote.

In January, the military government passed a new political party registration law that makes it harder for opposition political formations to mount a serious challenge to the junta's preferred candidates.

It defines conditions such as a minimum threshold for membership, requirements for candidates and positions, which any party without the support of the army could hardly fulfill, especially in the current repressive political atmosphere.

The new law states that existing parties must submit a new application for registration to the electoral commission within 60 days - by March 28 - and those that fail will be "automatically cancelled" and considered dissolved.

It also states that if they are voluntarily dissolved or if their registration is canceled by operation of law,

The election, for which no date has been announced, will almost certainly be won by the Union for Solidarity and Development party, a proxy for the military rule that was defeated by the NLD in the 2015 election and the 2020 vote, which subsequently was cancelled.

Popular among Myanmar's people, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is among the many representatives of the NLD currently in prison.

She was found guilty of multiple counts of corruption, breach of state secrets law and incitement, among other crimes.

Myanmar

Aung San Suu Kyi