Arakan League for Democracy
Political party in Myanmar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Arakan League for Democracy (Burmese: ရခိုင်ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်; abbreviated ALD) is a political party active in Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma).
8 January 2017 (split from ANP)
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
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| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
| www | |
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] The co-founder of ALD, U Oo Tha Tun was arrested in Sittwe and later died in the prison which further weakened the party.[5][6]
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.[7] 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).[8] With the formation of the new party, the Arakan League for Democracy was officially dissolved on 6 March 2014.[9][10][11][12]
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.[13][14] 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.[15]