Mizzima.com-Oct 1
National League for Democracy (NLD) members around Myanmar and abroad took a moment out this week to mark the 35th anniversary of the party’s founding as the country continues to struggle post-coup. Myanmar’s pro-democracy party the NLD was first established on 27 September 1988. The NLD was under military rule until the November 2010 multiparty elections in which the party refused to reregister under the new election law that technically targeted Aung San Suu Kyi, with the provision prohibiting individuals from any participation in elections if anyone who was (or had been) married to a foreign national from running for office. In the 2015 general elections, the NLD secured large-enough majority of seats in both houses of parliament, allowing the party to form a government, presided over by Htin Kyaw as Aung San Suu Kyi was not allowed to become head of state under the controversial military-written 2008 Constitution that favors the military to control important ministries such as defence, home affairs and border affairs. During the term of the NLD government from 2015 to 2020, several attempts were made by its MPs to amend the constitution, but the military blocked it. The NLD government faced many confrontations from the military and its allied parties, organizations and extreme nationalistic groups in its struggle for the democratic reform process until it was dethroned by the military with a coup on 1 February 2021 after the general elections on 8 November 2020 in which NLD won 396 seats out of 476 in the Union parliament. Read more at: https://www.mizzima.com/article/dethroned-nld-party-marks-35th-anniversary-myanmar
