Former general Thura Shwe Mann disbanded his political party on Wednesday morning, more than one-and-a-half years after Myanmar’s military coup and ahead of promises of a junta-controlled election allegedly taking place in August 2023.
He announced in a statement that the central executive committee (CEC) members of the Union Betterment Party (UBP) had unanimously decided to dissolve the party, which he founded in April 2019 ahead of Myanmar’s general election in late 2020.
“The leaders are now becoming too old to lead the party, and some are suffering from various health ailments while others are facing miscellaneous problems. They no longer wish to be involved in politics,” Shwe Mann, who was once the third-highest ranking general under Than Shwe’s army regime, is quoted as saying.
The statement said that UBP’s registration would be repealed, and that party leaders would report its dissolution to the military’s election commission, effective from Tuesday.
Shwe Mann, a former Lower House speaker, chaired the military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) for several years before being forcefully removed from the position ahead of the 2015 November election.
When he later founded the UBP, he told Myanmar Now in a campaign interview that he “would never answer to anyone’s orders.”
The UBP’s candidates failed to secure any legislative seats, with Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) winning in a landslide in 2020. The results of the election were not honoured by the military, which staged a coup in early 2021.
Seventy-five-year-old Shwe Mann is known to have close ties to Suu Kyi, who has been detained in junta custody since the coup, convicted of multiple criminal charges in military-controlled courts.
He has not spoken publicly about the military’s seizure of power, but Myanmar Now has learned that his political party’s leadership did not convene during the post-coup period.
UBP CEC member Saw Hla Tun told Myanmar Now that he was notified on October 11 by the party command of the plans to disband.
“We were told that the party was going to be dissolved as Thura Shwe Mann had become too old to lead it and that it was no longer appropriate to carry out the party’s plans,” he said.
“I just hope the focus is on the safety of the party members. I’m just worried something might happen to them. We are already at risk of getting misunderstood, so even I, personally, do not want to take part in the party’s political activities anymore,” he explained.
The UBP’s headquarters are located at Shwe Mann’s own residence, located on Yazathingaha Road in Naypyitaw’s Pobbathiri Township alongside the homes of other former generals.
As of now, the USDP is the only party publicly making campaign preparations to take part in the junta’s promised election in 2023.
Khin Yi, who was appointed USDP chair last week, described the party’s “ultimate goal” as to “win in the election.”
The USDP has only ever won a majority in the 2010 general election, which was widely criticised as being neither free nor fair, and which was boycotted by the NLD.
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