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Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar president and other senior figures in the ruling party have been detained by the army in morning raids, a party spokesman said on Monday.
Spokesman Myo Nyunt told Reuters that Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other leaders had been “captured” early in the morning. “I want to tell our people not to respond rashly and I want them to act in accordance with the law,” he said, adding that he also expected to be arrested.
“We have to assume that the military is staging a coup,” said a party spokesman.
An NLD lawmaker, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said another of the detainees was Han Thar Myint, a member of the party’s central executive committee.
Telephone lines to Naypyitaw, the capital, were not accessible in the early hours of Monday. The BBC reported that there were soldiers on the streets of Yangon and Naypyitaw. A military spokesman did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.
On Monday morning, Myanmar’s state television said on Facebook that it was unable to broadcast.
The raids come after the country’s powerful military raised the specter of a coup while increasing demands for an investigation into suspected electoral fraud during last year’s elections, which were swept away by the ruling Aung San party. Suu Kyi.
The raids took place just hours before parliament began its first session after the November elections.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) won the November elections overwhelmingly, but has been widely criticized by human rights groups for disenfranchising voters in conflict-torn regions.
The army-aligned opposition questioned the results, while the army has for weeks denounced widespread voter irregularities, claiming to have found 8.6 million cases of fraud.
Last week, the military spokesman, Major General Zaw Min Tun, said that Warlord Min Aung Hlaing, possibly the most powerful individual in Myanmar, had already pointed out “dishonesty and injustice” during the elections.
When pressed about the possibility of a coup, the spokesman declined to be called, but did not rule it out.
“We are not saying that the Tatmadaw will take power. We are not saying that it will not either, ”the spokesman said, using the Burmese name for the military.
The November elections were the second openly contested elections since Myanmar emerged in 2011 after nearly 50 years of junta rule.
But the military still plays a huge role in the country’s politics, retaining control over key ministries thanks to a junta-drafted constitution that dictates an uneasy power-sharing agreement with de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
On Monday, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae, said that “there was no justification for the military detention of Aung Sang Suu Kyi.”
“The Burmese army, the Tatmadaw, must be held accountable,” he said.
More soon …
