Myanmar junta lifts Yangon curfew ahead of elections
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A man taking part in early voting in Yangon on Dec 26 ahead of the start of Myanmar's general election.
PHOTO: AFP
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YANGON – Myanmar’s junta said on Dec 26 it will lift a curfew imposed in Yangon since its 2021 coup, just days before the start of elections it touts as a return to normality.
The military ousted Myanmar’s elected government
As security forces battled to put down the demonstrators, the junta enforced a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the largest city of Yangon, home to around seven million people.
In the years since then, the span of the curfew has shrunk incrementally – and the junta said the remaining 1am to 3am lockdown would be lifted by Dec 27.
“Regional stability in Yangon region is improving now,” said a statement shared by junta spokesman Major-General Zaw Min Tun.
The statement said the decision was made “in order to improve economic, social and religious matters, for the convenience of people’s transportation and to improve business development”.
The military crushed the protest movement, but many activists quit the cities to fight as guerillas alongside powerful ethnic minority armies that have long held sway in the nation’s fringes.
The dynamic has plunged Myanmar into a civil war killing thousands, displacing more than 3.6 million and leaving half the nation in poverty, according to the United Nations.
The military took over after making allegations that the government of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi trounced their pro-military opponents by means of massive voter fraud.
But the junta has organised new elections
Ms Suu Kyi remains jailed, her hugely popular party dissolved. The poll is being widely criticised by democracy watchdogs as an exercise to rebrand military rule
While the Yangon curfew was only two hours, the city’s nightlife has remained gutted since the Covid-19 pandemic and the coup that continued heavy restrictions.
Taxis are hard to hail as evenings draw on, and many restaurants and bars close early, even at weekends.
As the junta battles its opponents, it has also enacted a conscription order to draft young men into its ranks, making them wary of being press-ganged at night. AFP
