"Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro said on Thursday that ASEAN has not endorsed the three phases of the elections that were held in Myanmar, which concluded last weekend. Lazaro was speaking after hosting ASEAN's first major ministerial meetings this year in the central Philippines city of Cebu, where the Myanmar crisis was high on the agenda. Asked in a news conference if the bloc did not recognise the elections, Lazaro said yes, as of now."
"ASEAN's nonrecognition of the elections will be a major blow to normalisation efforts by Myanmar's military rulers, who seized power in 2021 and hoped to gain international recognition and a degree of legitimacy by holding the election. On Monday, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) claimed victory in the vote. A senior USDP official was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying, We won a majority already, based on preliminary results."
ASEAN's 11 members do not recognise the recently held elections in military-ruled Myanmar and have not endorsed the three phases of voting. Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro stated that the bloc had not yet reached consensus and that although three rounds of voting concluded, the overall process is not over. The meetings in Cebu focused heavily on the Myanmar crisis. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party claimed victory based on preliminary results and said it was positioned to form a government. Military leaders seized power in 2021 and sought legitimacy and international recognition through the election, while official results and parliamentary timelines had been announced for March and April.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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