Tribal parties in Rakhine face uphill struggles to re-register as political parties

Narinjara News, February 24, 2023

Even though the minority tribal parties in Rakhine State are willing to re-register to remain\ political parties, they face financial and other difficulties.

"There are many difficulties for small parties like us. In addition to paying 100-lakh kyats as a party insurance fee, we have to go to Naypyidaw two or three times for the procedures, so it may cost at least 130-lakh or140-lakh kyats”, chairman of the Mro National Party, U Aye Tun told Narinajra.

Minority tribal parties face financial difficulties for registration due to the requirements of the new Political Parties Registration Law enacted by the Military Council.

On the other hand, Mro National Party is trying to get registered because it believes that it will be able to serve the interests of its own tribe only if it can stand as a political party, U Aye Tun added.

“The opinion of the party members in Ponnagyun, Kyautaw, Buthidaung and Maungdaw is still being asked for the matter of re-registering the party. Whether or not the party is registered will be confirmed on March 5th", he said.

U Kyaw Nyein, Secretary of Kaman National Progressive Party (KNPP) told Narinjara that due to the requirements in the new Political Parties Registration Law, It has become very difficult for his party even if reducing the structure to stand as a state-level political party.

“In the past, our country was organized at the national level. But now, according to the new law, it is no longer possible to stand as a national level party. Even if the structure is reduced to the state and region-based party level, the demand to pay party insurance is still quite large. And there are various challenges in opening branches in 5 townships. Previously, branches were opened in Kyaukphyu, Sittwe, Ramree and Thandwe, but under the current situation, the remaining party strength can only be concentrated in Thandwe”, he explained.

Khami National Development Party is still debating whether to re-register as a political party and will make a decision by the end of the month, said party chairman U Sein Hla Kyaw.

“So far, it is still in the discussion stage and nothing concrete has been decided yet. It will be confirmed on the 28th of this month. More likely to register the party”, he told Narinjara.

On January 26th, the Election Commission under the Military Council released the new law and regulations for the registration of political parties and invited political parties to apply for party registration within 60 days in accordance with the new law.

According to the new law, there are two types of parties that will campaign at the national level and those that will campaign by state (or) region.

Parties that will be campaigning at the national level must open an account at the Myanmar Commercial Bank with 1000-lakh kyats as party funds. And they need to be able to compete in at least 165 places, which is half of the total number of townships in the country. And these parties must be able to recruit 100000 party members within 90 days after the Election Commission recognized them as official political parties.

The new law also stipulates that political parties that will organize only at state or regional level must open an account with 100-lakh kyats of party funds at any branch of Myanmar commercial bank and need to gather at least 1000 party members within 90 days. The law also stated that these parties must open branches in at least 5 townships.