Arakan League for Democracy

Arakan League for Democracy ရခိုင် ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်
Abbreviation	ALD
Leader	Aye Tha Aung
Founded	27 September 1989 8 January 2017 (split from ANP)
Split from	Arakan National Party (2017)
Headquarters	373 Lower Pazundaung Road, Pazundaung Township, Yangon
Ideology	Rakhine interests
Seats in the Amyotha Hluttaw	1 / 224
Seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw	0 / 440
Seats in the Rakhine State Hluttaw	4 / 47
Party flag
Website
www.aldarakan.org
Politics of Myanmar Political parties Elections

The Arakan League for Democracy (Burmese: ရခိုင်ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်; abbreviated ALD) is a political party active in Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma).

History

The ALD was founded on 27 September 1989, in Yangon, and it was registered with the election commission on 2 October 1989. It contested 25 seats in the 1990 general elections,^[1] receiving the majority of the vote at the Rakhine State.^[2] Nationally it received 1.2% of the vote, winning 11 seats, making it the third-largest party.^[3] However, the ALD was banned by the military government on 6 March 1992.^[4]

On 6 April 2012, the ALD was allowed to be re-established as a political party by the Union Election Commission, as its application complied with the law and rules of the election commission.^[5] In November, members of the ALD claimed that they had been threatened by local authorities with the abolition of the party, due to an alleged recruitment membership fraud.^[2]

On 17 June 2013, The Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) and the Arakan League for Democracy signed an agreement to merge under the name Arakan National Party (ANP).^[6] With the formation of the new party, the Arakan League for Democracy was officially dissolved on 6 March 2014.^{[7][8][9][10]}

On 8 January 2017, former leaders of the ALD announced that they were splitting from the ANP and were re-registering with the Union Election Commission for the 2020 elections, citing internal issues and RNDP dominance in the ANP as the reasons for the split.^[11][12] As of 5 October 2017, five members of parliament — four state Hluttaw members and one Amyotha Hluttaw member — have resigned from the Arakan National Party and joined the re-registered Arakan League for Democracy.^[13]

References

1. Robert H Taylor (2009) The State in Myanmar, NUS Press
2. Authorities threaten to abolish Arakanese party Archived 2 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine Narinjara.com, 28 November 2012
3. Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p615 ISBN 0-19-924958-X
4. 1990 multi-party democracy general elections Democratic Voice of Burma
5. ALD Allowed to Re-Establish as Political Party Archived 1 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine Narinjara.com, 11 April 2012
6. Naw Say Phaw Waa (21 June 2013). "Rakhine parties formalise merger". The Myanmar Times. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
7. "Arakanese Political Parties Merge to Form ANP". The Irrawaddy. 14 January 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
8. "Rakhine National Party allowed as political party | Ministry Of Information". Moi.gov.mm. 6 March 2014. Archived from the original on 15 April 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
9. "Formation of Rakhine National Party approved | Ministry Of Information". Moi.gov.mm. Archived from the original on 15 April 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
10. "Arakanese Political Parties Merge to Form ANP". Irrawaddy.org. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
11. Mon, Ye (10 January 2017). "Eyeing 2020 comeback, Rakhine's ALD party regroups". Myanmar Times. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
12. Myint, Moe (9 January 2017). "ALD Members Re-Establish Party Under Same Name". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
13. "State MP resigns from Arakan National Party". The Myanmar Times. Retrieved 24 December 2017.