The ruling army has extended for another six months the state of emergency in Burma, in force since the February 2021 coup, official media said on Monday.
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, in place since the putsch, asked members of the military government “to leave him in office for another six months”, until February 2023, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar.
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The eleven members of the National Defense and Security Council have “supported his proposal unanimously“, reported the state daily.
The junta declared a state of emergency, which gives it full powers, in the wake of the February 1, 2021 coup that overthrew civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The army justified its coup by citing massive fraud in the general election won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), in November 2020. It also promised a new vote within a year.
As the country descended into civil conflict, she later renewed her commitment and assured that the state of emergency would be lifted by August 2023.
In a speech broadcast Monday morning, Min Aung Hlaing did not mention a date. He said that Burma must first be “peaceful and stableto hold elections.
The general spoke of areformof the electoral system, replacing the single-member majority system which favored the LND, with a proportional system.
The Burmese junta, regularly accused of atrocities, continues a bloody repression against its opponents with more than 2,000 civilians killed and more than 15,000 arrested since the coup, according to a local NGO.
Arrested at the time of the putsch, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, faces several charges that could earn her up to 150 years in prison in total.
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