Myanmar Spring Chronicle – December 8 Snapshot
(MoeMaKa) December 9, 2025
After nearly 5 years: NUG reshuffle that trims some ministries
The National Unity Government (NUG), formed on April 17, 2021, has announced changes nearly five years later, reducing some ministries, reassigning certain ministers, promoting some, and having others step down from their posts.
Back in early September, one news outlet reported that a “NUG reform meeting” was held in Brussels, Belgium, with some participants physically present and others joining via video conference. Now, a little over three months later, this reshuffle has been officially announced.
However, the changes that many people had hoped for are not what emerged. What has been done looks more like shifting a few positions around and reassigning ministers in less central ministries, rather than a deep, structural reform of the NUG.
Many supporters of the Spring Revolution had hoped that key ministries responsible for governance — especially the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Home Affairs — would be reshaped and led by people with stronger expertise and experience. According to the announcement, though, those core ministries were not changed or replaced, which is why many comments under the news reports say it cannot really be called “reform.”
A lot of people had hoped that the Ministry of Defense would be led by those with strong military experience from ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), people recognized as capable commanders. The public does not know exactly what practical difficulties or obstacles the NUG faces in order to meet these expectations, but many had hoped that — even if not all — at least the main, militarily powerful ethnic organizations could be brought together as a joint command under a single strategy.
While the junta side is fighting as a single army under a unified command and orders, the armed forces on the side of the Spring Revolution are still not united under a single command structure and unified strategy. To change this situation, many see it as essential to move toward a joint forces structure, one led by commanders with real battlefield experience. This is the first and most important area of change the public wanted to see from NUG reform.
Another major expectation concerns governance and rule of law in areas controlled by PDF forces. Many people had hoped the Ministry of Home Affairs and related institutions would be reorganized and strengthened so that administration and justice in these areas could function better than they do now.
Looking at the newly released announcement, people do not see the sort of big, substantial changes they were waiting for. Reading the comments and opinions on social media, you can sense public disappointment and loss of confidence.
Supporters of the revolution have also criticized the NUG for maintaining ministries that seem less essential in wartime conditions — such as those focused on trade and commerce, or electricity and energy — as if it were a normal peacetime government. If the NUG had truly adopted a primarily military path to victory, many expected a war-time cabinet structure focused above all on winning the war.
From that perspective, the public’s main hope has been that people with concrete military experience would be placed in charge of ministries like Defense. If, on the other hand, the military path is meant to be only a secondary or backup route, and the main path is diplomatic pressure and international leverage to force the junta to yield, then what is needed would be to significantly strengthen the NUG’s capacities for diplomacy and international engagement.
So why has the NUG been unable, in this round of changes, to transform itself into a government structure that can cooperate more deeply with ethnic armed organizations?
Is it because some EAOs themselves have decided not to deal with the NUG? In northern Shan areas along the Chinese border, there are groups over which China has strong influence. It is known from the meeting records between the UWSA leadership and China’s special envoy in August last year that Beijing told some northern EAOs not to engage or cooperate with the NUG.
But for EAOs in other parts of the country — in the west, south, and east of Myanmar — which are not under strong Chinese pressure, there are real opportunities for cooperation.
Many people had hoped the NUG would work more deeply and systematically to form military alliances and political arrangements with groups such as KNU, KNPP, AA, CNF and KIA — and that these organizations could also be brought into the NUG structure in some way, helping to reshape it from within.
Taken together, the conclusion is this: the NUG’s “reform” package announced on December 8 looks, in the eyes of much of the public, less like a significant overhaul or reorganization and more like a cosmetic, surface-level reshuffle.