JakartaPost-/AFP-Oct 30
ASEAN has decided against sending observers to Myanmar military regime’s planned election in late December, Foreign Minister Sugiono has said, because doing so would risk lending the bloc’s stamp of approval. “All [ASEAN] members agreed that the election may not yet be appropriate to hold,” Sugiono told reporters on the sidelines of the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, on Tuesday. He said ASEAN members shared the same view that deploying observers could be seen as lending legitimacy to the poll. “For that reason, ASEAN collectively decided not to send any observers to Myanmar,” Sugiono said. Leaders of ASEAN nations, including President Prabowo Subianto who cut short his attendance, have wrapped up the three-day ASEAN summit in Malaysia, where one of the key topics of discussion was the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. Myanmar has been in turmoil since a 2021 military coup that overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggered an armed rebellion that has led to large parts of the country slipping out of the junta’s control. The country has announced plans to hold general elections in December this year, which junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has billed as a path to peace in the civil war unleashed by his 2021 coup, AFP reported. Voting will not take place across large swathes of the country controlled by pro-democracy guerrillas and ethnic minority armies fighting the military regime. Human Rights Watch has condemned the vote as a “sham”, while Amnesty International accused the junta of “repressive tactics” and “arresting anyone critical of the poll”. Read more at:
