Deaths and repression sideline Suu Kyi's party ahead of Myanmar vote

Death, detention and dissolution have decimated Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, easing the way for groups backed by Myanmar's ruling military to claim victory at elections expected next year, analysts say.

The death this week of National League for Democracy (NLD) vice president Zaw Myint Maung -- a close confidante of Suu Kyi -- was the latest blow to a party crippled by the junta's crackdown.

It came after party co-founder Tin Oo -- a military general turned democracy activist -- died of old age in June.

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi remains enduringly popular in Myanmar and the NLD would undoubtedly win a third landslide victory if she was to lead it into a free election, analysts say.

But the junta dissolved the party last year for failing to re-register under a tough new military-drafted electoral law, and it is barred from any new vote.

State media said on Wednesday that junta chief Min Aung Hlaing "clearly reaffirmed" the military's plans to hold elections next year.

Many in Myanmar would see the polls as a "cunning" attempt by the junta to "earn some veneer of legitimacy", said Htwe Htwe Thein of Curtin University in Australia.

NLD members still inside the country are struggling to "reorganize" the party due to the junta's continuing crackdown, one senior member recently released from prison told AFP, requesting anonymity.

- Fighting peacock -

The NLD was forged in the bloody aftermath of a failed democracy uprising in 1988 that catapulted Suu Kyi to global fame.

For decades it was the main democratic opposition to the military's iron grip over Myanmar, with its members enduring harsh repression.

After the generals enacted democratic reforms, it won crushing election victories in 2015 and 2020, using the logo of a fighting peacock.

But in February 2021, hours before the new parliament was to be sworn in, the military mounted a coup and detained the NLD's top leadership.

Weeks after the coup, former NLD spokesman Nyan Win died in custody of Covid-19.

Zaw Myint Maung died of leukemia aged 72 on Monday, days after being released from military custody.

Suu Kyi is serving a lengthy jail sentence, as is former president Win Myint, following a trial in a junta court that critics say was a sham designed to remove them from politics.

She remains widely popular in Myanmar, although her international standing has waned over her failure to stop a brutal military crackdown on the Rohingya minority now the subject of a genocide case at the UN's top court.

Around a dozen parties have been permitted to re-register so far for next year's vote, including the military's proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Main ally Beijing has backed the junta's plans for the polls and this year invited the USDP and three other parties for talks in China.

- 'Crushing repression' -

Some younger members of the NLD have turned to armed struggle since the coup, joining "People's Defence Forces" and ethnic rebels fighting the military -- and breaching a key NLD tenet of non-violence.

A shadow "National Unity Government" set up to overturn the coup has also drawn NLD members away, while splits have emerged between those underground in Myanmar and those in exile, according to party sources.

Party members who have stayed inside the country have faced severe consequences in the junta's crackdown.

Phyo Zeya Thaw, a hip-hop artist turned NLD lawmaker was executed by the junta in 2022, in Myanmar's first use of capital punishment in decades.

Following the coup, he was accused by the junta of orchestrating several attacks on regime forces, including a shooting on a commuter train in Yangon that killed five policemen.

He was sentenced to death at a closed-door trial and executed, drawing huge criticism from rights groups.

"We will keep fighting for democracy against the regime," a second senior NLD member said, also requesting anonymity to speak from inside Myanmar.

"We will be back."

The NLD "has faced crushing repression for three decades and still holds together", said independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson.

Much hinges on its talisman Suu Kyi, 79, who languishes in a prison in the military-built capital, has not been seen in public for years and who has designated no successor, he added.

"What happens to the party after Suu Kyi's eventual passing is the major question, and whether it could ever regroup and be a viable national force."