CNI News

11 March 2025

As the chairman of the State Administration Council has expressed exactly the time when elections will be held, the SAC can emerge as a powerful group for elections if its current six month tenure expires, military and political analysts told CNI News.

The SAC Sr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing expressed that he had planned to hold elections in December 2025 or in January 2026 at a joint press conference with the Belarusian President Lukashenko on 7 March 2025.

Because the SAC's current six month tenure will expire in August 2025, the SAC can emerge as a different administrative group in stead of extending the state of emergency for another six months, chairman of the PNLO-NCA/S, Col. Khun Okkar told CNI News.

" Because the current six month tenure will end in August, the SAC seems to want the remaining 6 months to be an election period. Rather than extending the state of emergency for another six months, the SAC may change into an organization that will supervise elections with the Union Election Commission." he said.

Because of the ballot fraud in the 2020 general election, the SAC had taken the responsibility temporarily after announcing the state of emergency; in the near future, elections would be held in accordance with the law, said the SAC Chairman at a joint press conference with the Belarusian President on 7th March, 2025.

While seeing Sr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and the Belarusian President Lukashenko

Although he said that 53 political parties would run the election, he did not express the exact date when elections would be held. 

If elections were held, according to the 2008 constitution, the State power would have to be handed over to the National Defense and Security Council, director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategy Studies, U Thein Tun Oo told CNI News.

" If elections are held, according to the 2008 constitution, the State power will have to be handed over to the National Defense and Security Council. And then, elections will be held within six months. The campaign period is three months. If the SAC has officially announced that it will hold elections, it will surely hand over the State power to the NDSC and hold elections." he said.

Although the SAC announced in 2022 that it would hold elections in August 2023, because battles were severely breaking out all over the country, the SAC extended the state of emergency for another six months under Section. 425 of the 2008 constitution. And then the SAC repeatedly extended the tenure until today.

So, questions are emerging among members of the public regarding the period when elections would be held, which the SAC chairman said at a joint press conference with the Belarusian President Lukashenko.