The National Democratic Force has announced four candidates who will run in the April 2017 by-elections, which will fill a total of 18 seats across Myanmar.
Khine Maung Yi, the chairperson of the party’s Yangon Region campaign committee, announced the names on November 10. They include Thet Tun Maung, Kyee Myint, Aung Myint and Khine Maung Yi himself.
The party also plans to field a candidate for Kawhmu Township, which Aung San Suu Kyi vacated to take the post of state counsellor. However, this candidate has not been declared yet.
Khine Maung Yi said: “Running for Kawhmu is a challenge. We have debated about it. We have some concerns, but we need to face these challenges. So we will run for Kawhmu.”
The NDF split from the National League for Democracy when the latter decided to boycott the 2010 elections, which are widely regarded to have been rigged in favor of the military-backed USDP.
The party has positioned itself as a ‘third force’ in Myanmar politics, representing voters seeking something between the NLD and the USDP. It won 16 seats in the 2010 election but failed to gain an additional 13 seats in the 2012 by-election; those were all won by the NLD. The NDF also lost all of its seats in the 2015 election.
The party made waves in 2014 for proposing to replace Myanmar’s first-past-the-post voting system with proportional representation, which was largely seen to be beneficial to the USDP at the expense of the NLD and ethnic minority parties.
