Myanmar Spring Chronicle – September 14 View
(MoeMaKa) September 15, 2025)
Generals taking off their uniforms to contest the election
In recent days, reports have emerged that the military has retired more than a dozen generals so they can shed their uniforms and run in the year-end “organized” election under the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).
According to those reports, the military has released 6 lieutenant generals and 10 major generals. In addition, three other retired senior generals who have been serving in the current junta government have also submitted their names to the USDP to run.
Among the current crop are five who served as chiefs (heads) within the Ministry of Defence and one former commander of a special operations formation.
Even so, the total—19 (6 lieutenant generals, 10 major generals, plus 3 previously retired generals)—is far smaller than the number of generals who crossed over to the party before the 2010 and 2015 elections. Ahead of 2010, some 40–50 generals were retired to run; there were also noticeably more in 2015 than this time.
The 2010 election went down in history as one in which the officer corps entered en masse with a “win at any cost” mindset, including arranging as many advance ballots as needed. There was ample evidence of such advance-vote manipulation, and the USDP won handily and formed the government—allowing many retired officers to benefit. In 2015, by contrast, both the retired officers and the military were pushed aside: the USDP lost badly and their hopes for power were abruptly shattered. Before the 2015 vote, when the military sent over its list of retired generals, then-USDP chairman Thura Shwe Mann did not accept all of them—triggering an internal “party coup” that removed him from the chairmanship.
The situation now in 2025 differs markedly from 2010 and 2015. Although the USDP has engineered conditions to try to win decisively in 2025, both the Myanmar public and the international community show little interest, and some armed resistance groups have warned they will act to prevent the election from being held.
It is widely known in Myanmar that Min Aung Hlaing has laid plans and prepared the ground to become President after the election. If he were to assume the presidency, however, he could no longer simultaneously serve as Commander-in-Chief as he does now (alongside being “interim president”); he would have to hand the military post to someone else—perhaps Deputy Commander-in-Chief Soe Win or a favored senior general such as Kyaw Swar Lin.
For the junta, the late-year election is essentially an unavoidable waypoint—something to be held while dragging out the current state of emergency and military rule. Yet as battlefield and diplomatic setbacks mounted, they had earlier promised China—whose diplomatic, financial, and arms support they seek—that they would hold an election in mid-last year. That commitment has pushed them to set a timetable; India, another powerful neighbor, has also moved into a supportive posture toward an election.
What the junta wants is to keep all three branches of power effectively in the hands of the current military leadership, governing the country through a President or “acting president” with no real authority.
Experience from 2011–2015 taught them that once generals retire into the party or cabinet, they can no longer be ordered around as in the army. Rivalries between Speaker Thura Shwe Mann and President Thein Sein, and later the Shwe Mann–Aung San Suu Kyi alliance, worried the top brass.
The military has never desired a true separation of powers. But to justify itself to insiders and supporters—while remaining dominant and facing growing battlefield pressure from ethnic armed organizations and NUG-aligned PDFs—it has decided to pursue a “political change” maneuver.
One thing is clear: the post-2025/26 election period will not resemble the post-2010 environment. If the military expects to find itself in a favorable position after this election, that expectation is simply a miscalculation.