Myanmar’s military ruler Min Aung Hlaing extended a state of emergency for another six months on the basis of facilitating promised elections, state media reported on Monday, a day before the one-year anniversary of the military coup.
State-run newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar reported that the military government would strive to hold new elections once the situation was “peaceful and stable,” without giving a date.
“It was necessary to set the right track for the genuine, disciplined multi-party democracy,” Min Aung Hlaing said in the newspaper’s report, where he also talked about the threat from “internal and external saboteurs” and “terrorist attacks and destruction.”
Security forces cracking down on dissent have killed at least 1 500 people and arrested 11 838 since the coup, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, an activist group cited by the United Nations.
The Southeast Asian country has been in chaos since Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other figures from her National League for Democracy (NLD) party were rounded up in raids, accused by the junta of rigging a 2020 election the NLD won.
