A top figure within the Arakan National Party (ANP) has officially resigned over the party’s support for the coup regime following the military’s takeover on February 1.
Pe Than, an ANP spokesperson and policy board member, submitted his resignation on June 13, but it was only officially accepted at an online executive committee meeting on Saturday, said Tun Aung Kyaw, a senior party official.
Pe Than served as a lower house MP representing Rakhine State’s Myebon Township for two consecutive parliamentary terms until the 2020 election.
“My first reason for resigning is that I don’t like the party’s stance since the military staged the coup,” he told Myanmar Now. “The second one is that some senior leaders within the party are acting irresponsibly, without working in accordance with the party’s policies and regulations.”
The ANP was heavily criticised by members of the public and Rakhine civil society groups after two of its most prominent members accepted positions of power within the junta.
Aye Nu Sein, an ANP policy board member, accepted a role on February 3 as one of thirteen members of the State Administration Council, the name the junta gives to the body it has set up in a bid to govern the country.
Zaw Aye Maung, another top ANP figure, became the junta’s deputy ethnic affairs minister later the same month.
The party initially supported the appointments, but since early May has sought to distance itself from the coup regime after trying and failing to win local leadership roles for its members in Rakhine State.
Party chair Tha Tun Hla has previously responded to criticism by saying that Aye Nu Sein’s decision to join the junta was “personal” and does not represent the party’s position.
Pe Than said he was resigning for the greater good of the people of Rakhine, and that he did not believe the junta would ever hold a free and fair election.
“Party politics is only possible when there is a parliamentary system, which is shaped by elections,” he said. “I am seeing a situation where the military council will prolong the time until holding an election. It could be 10 or 15 years.”
The ANP is considered the most influential political party in Rakhine State; it won a majority of parliamentary seats during all three general elections held since 2010.
