Coup leader pledges election will be held
THE leader of the coup in Myanmar has said a new election will be held as promised in a year and that the military will hand over power to the winners.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing made no mention of the ongoing unrest in the country during a 20-minute televised speech yesterday, his first to the public since the takeover.
He instead repeated the claim that the military staged the takeover because of alleged voter fraud.
Tension in the confrontations between the authorities and demonstrators over last week’s coup has boiled over, as police fired water cannon at peaceful protesters in the capital Naypyitaw.
In the town of Myawaddy on Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand, police shot into the air in an effort to disperse a rowdy crowd.
There had been no initial reports of injuries, but the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent watchdog group, said one woman had been shot, without providing further details.
There have been no signs that either protesters or the military were backing down in their confrontation over who is the country’s legitimate government: Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, which won a landslide victory in last November’s election, or the junta that formed
one week ago and which claims the polls were marred by voting fraud.
Non-violent protests demanding the release of the detained Ms Suu Kyi and restoration of her government have spread all over the country, with awareness of them growing after the authorities on Sunday lifted a brief ban on internet access.
State media for the first time yesterday made reference to the protests, claiming they were endangering the country’s stability.
“Democracy can be destroyed if there is no discipline,” according to a statement from the Ministry of Information, read on state television station MRTV. “We will have to take legal actions to prevent acts that are violating state stability, public safety and the rule of law.”
There were reports of new protests yesterday in Kachin State in the north, Mon State in the south, Tachileik, a border town in eastern Shan State, Naypyitaw and Mandalay, the country’s second largest city, where there were both marchers and a procession of motorbikes.
The protests in Naypyitaw, ongoing for several days, have been especially unusual, for a great part of the city’s population are civil servants and their families.
The city was purpose-built under a previous military government, has a heavy military presence and lacks the tradition of protest of the former capital, Yangon.