About 500 protesters in western Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state demanded on Wednesday that they be allowed to choose their own chief minister from the state's strongest local ethnic political party, in an expression of discontent with the incoming government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
The protestors marched through the state capital Sittwe, demanding that the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which Aung San Suu Kyi chairs, respect the Rakhine people’s wishes and not set up what they called a one-party dictatorship in the state.
The Arakan National Party (ANP), which represents the interests of the predominantly Buddhist, ethnic Rakhine majority living in the state and in the Yangon region, won 22 seats in the country’s National Assembly in general elections last November that swept the NLD to victory over the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).
It also won 23 of 47 state parliament seats, but failed to gain a majority in the Arakan State legislature because a quarter of seats automatically went to military representatives, as they do in other state and regional parliaments as well as in the National Assembly. By contrast, the NLD won only eight seats in Rakhine’s legislature in the election.
“The Rakhine people’s votes were for the ANP,” Aung Ko Moe, one of the protest leaders, told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “We want an ANP government for Rakhine state because the ANP won in Rakhine in the last election.” (Courtesy of RFA)
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