USDP | The junta in civilian clothing

Five years after staging a military coup that overturned the 2020 election results and imprisoned elected leaders, including National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint, Myanmar’s junta is now attempting to legitimise its rule through elections. The poll has been denounced as a sham by the international community, with the regime’s allies — Russia, Belarus and neighbouring China — sending observers to lend it credibility.

The first phase of the poll was held on December 28, 2025, with the remaining two scheduled for early and late January. However, these polls cover only about half of Myanmar’s territory, with the rest beyond the junta’s reach due to the ongoing civil war involving the NLD-led National Unity Government’s Bamar-dominated People’s Defence Forces and ethnic armed organisations across the country.

In results that were a foregone conclusion, the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) claimed victory in nearly 80% of contested seats. The USDP fielded over 1,000 candidates, far exceeding its closest rivals’ tallies. Meanwhile, the NLD, which won landslide victories in 2015 and 2020, was deregistered along with 40 other parties. Collectively, they had won 90% of legislative seats in 2020.

Aiding the USDP’s dominance was the junta’s introduction of a proportional representation system, replacing the first-past-the-post method that had delivered the NLD’s sweeping victories. This allows the USDP to secure seats even with minimal popular support, over and above the 25% of parliamentary seats reserved for military appointees under the 2008 Constitution. In sum, this was almost a repeat of the controlled 2010 elections, but with the deck stacked even more heavily in the junta’s favour.

The USDP’s origins lie in the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), established by Senior General Than Shwe in September 1993, just months after the regime convened a National Convention to draft Myanmar’s future constitution. Than Shwe, who ruled Myanmar from 1992 to 2011, had come to power after the junta negated the NLD’s triumph in multi-party elections in 1990. Officially a social organisation aimed at “national development” and “ethnic amity”, the USDA was, in reality, designed to be the military’s civilian arm. Its vice-chairman and general secretary were retired military officers, but the post of chairman was kept empty so as not to create a parallel leader beyond the Senior General, according to a former USDP insider Ye Htut. The USDA also functioned as an organisation that conducted and promoted business under the junta’s patronage.

In 2010, following the institution of a new constitution in 2008, the USDA transformed into the USDP just before elections that would bring a quasi-civilian government to power. Ex-general Thein Sein was elected president in polls boycotted by the NLD and widely derided as rigged. In genuinely contested elections in 2015 and 2020, however, the USDP suffered humiliating defeats, losing even in its stronghold of the national capital, Naypyitaw.

Strategic instrument

In a way, the USDP is a successor to the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) that ruled Myanmar under a one-party dictatorship led by Ne Win following a military coup in 1962. The BSPP was inseparable from the state and collapsed in 1988 following the popular 8888 uprisingthat brought down the dictatorship. The military seized power again through a coup, and ruled until 2011 with Than Shwe as leader.

The USDP, in contrast to the BSPP, functions as a strategic instrument within a multi-party system while the military retains ultimate power through constitutional guarantees. If the USDP loses, the military doesn’t collapse; it simply uses other mechanisms to maintain control, as demonstrated by the 2021 coup. Also, unlike the BSPP’s “secular” and “socialist” pretensions, the USDP seeks legitimacy in an ideological blend of Bamar and Buddhist nationalism, by aligning with radical monastic groups like MaBaTha against perceived foreign and minority threats.

The USDP’s current leader is U Khin Yi, a former senior military officer and police chief who also served as immigration minister in Thein Sein’s government. Khin Yi conducted a series of pro-military rallies before the February 2021 coup, following the junta’s false claim that the NLD’s victory was due to fraud. The rallies and the violence that followed provided the pretext for the military’s seizure of absolute power.

The party’s candidate list for the current election is packed with generals and former ministers, including former defence minister Mya Tun Oo and Prime Minister Nyo Saw. The USDP now appears to be a vehicle to transition junta leader Min Aung Hlaing into a civilian presidency, providing a legal veneer to end the state of emergency declared after the coup.