YANGON: Myanmar’s junta extended the country’s state of emergency by another six months, the acting president said at a leadership meeting broadcast on state TV on Wednesday, as protesters marked the anniversary of a 2021 military coup with a “silent protest”.

Junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing, in a meeting on Tuesday with the army-backed National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), also said multi-party elections must be held “as the people desire”.

He did not provide a timeline for the polls, which cannot be held during a state of emergency. Critics have said any elections are likely to be a sham aimed at allowing the military to retain power.

“Although according to the section 425 of the constitution, (a state of emergency) can only be granted two times, the current situation is under unusual circumstances and it is suitable to extend it one more time of six months,” Acting President Myint Swe saying said at the meeting broadcast by MRTV.

The Southeast Asian country’s top generals led a putsch in February 2021 after five years of tense power-sharing under a quasi-civilian political system created by the military.

Protesters and exiled civilian leaders on Wednesday vowed to end what they called the army’s “illegal power grab”. In major cities across Myanmar, streets emptied as people stayed home in protest, while hundreds of democracy supporters attended rallies in Thailand and the Philippines.

The overthrow of the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi derailed a decade of reform, international engagement and economic growth, while leaving a trail of upended lives in its wake.

Myanmar has been in chaos since the coup, with a resistance movement fighting the military on multiple fronts after a bloody crackdown on opponents that saw Western sanctions re-imposed.

In the main commercial cities of Yangon and Mandalay, images on social media showed deserted streets in what coup opponents called a “silent protest” against the junta. Democracy activists had urged people not to go out between 10am and 3pm.

There was also a rally in Yangon by about 100 supporters of the military, flanked by soldiers, photographs showed. In Thailand, hundreds of anti-coup protesters held a rally outside Myanmar’s embassy in Bangkok.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2023