The National Democratic Force (NDF), is a political party in
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
(Burma). It was founded by former members of the
National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanmar (Burma). It ...
(NLD) who disagreed with the party leadership's decision to boycott the 2010 general election.
History
The National Democratic Force (NDF) was founded in June 2010 by Khin Maung Swe, Than Nyein, Thein Nyunt, and Win Naing, all of whom were prominent members of the NLD. They formed the party after the NLD executive committee refused to register with the
Union Election Commission
The Union Election Commission ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စု ရွေးကောက်ပွဲ ကော်မရှင်, abbreviated UEC) is the national level electoral commission of Myanmar (Burma), responsible for organising a ...
(UEC) and announced the NLD's intention to boycott the 2010 general election. The NDF was among the three political parties, together with the
Union Solidarity and Development Party
The Union Solidarity and Development Party ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုကြံ့ခိုင်ရေးနှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးပါတီ; abbr. USDP) is a political party in Myanmar, registered on ...
(USDP) and the
National Unity Party The National Unity Party, National United Party, Party of National Unity or National Unity Front may refer to:
* National United Party of Afghanistan (founded 2003)
* National Unity Party (Albania)
* National United Party (Armenia), defunct
* Natio ...
(NUP), to stand in the 2010 general election on a nationwide basis. The NDF's adoption of the peasant bamboo hat, which is a symbol traditionally used by the NLD, created some controversy. After the 2010 election, Thein Nyunt and Kyi Myint, members of the
Pyithu Hluttaw
The Pyithu Hluttaw ( my, ပြည်သူ့ လွှတ်တော်, ; House of Representatives) is the ''de jure'' lower house of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, the bicameral legislature of Myanmar (Burma). It consists of 440 members, of wh ...
, and Phone Myint Aung, a member of the
Amyotha Hluttaw
The Amyotha Hluttaw ( my, အမျိုးသားလွှတ်တော်, ; House of Nationalities) is the ''de jure'' upper house of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, the bicameral legislature of Myanmar (Burma). It consists of 224 members, o ...
, split from the party and set up the New National Democracy Party. In December 2011, another member of the Aymotha Hluttaw, Myat Nyana Soe, resigned from the party and joined the NLD. After the 2012 by-elections, two NDF MPs, Than Win and Khin Maung Win, also rejoined the NLD.
Party co-founder Than Nyein died of liver cancer at Pinlon Hospital in Yangon on 21 May 2014.
The NDF fielded 275 candidates in the 2015 general election, but failed to win a single seat.
In the aftermath of the military coup on 1 February 2021, the NDF collaborated with the new military junta, and party chairman Khin Maung Swe accepted a position in the
State Administration Council
The State Administration Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ; abbreviated SAC or နစက) is the military junta currently governing Myanmar, established by Comm ...
.
Ideology and beliefs
The NDF claims to be a
social liberal
Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...
party that seeks to promote individual freedoms and a
market economy
A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers ar ...
with state
regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a ...
. The party has stated that it supports civil and
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
, the resolution of
ethnic
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
political issues, and the development of
liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into ...
and
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere. and some of its prominent members have expressed their support for the
ultranationalist
Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its sp ...
''Ma Ba Tha'' organization. The NDF also backs the State Administration Council, the military junta which seized power in the aftermath of the 2021 military coup.
Leadership
Current
*
Khin Maung Swe
Khin Maung Swe ( my, ခင်မောင်ဆွေ) is a Burmese politician and member of Myanmar's State Administration Council. He is the chairman of the National Democratic Force (NDF).
Early life and education
Khin Maung Swe was born o ...
, Chairman (since 2010)
* Win Naing, President (since 2010)
* Aung Zin, Secretary
* Toe Mogok, Secretary
* Kyaw Htet, Central Youth Leader
* Others (unspecified): Toe Po, Thar Sine, Sein Hla Oo
Former
*
Than Nyein
Than Nyein ( my, သန်းငြိမ်း; 5 August 1937 – 21 May 2014) was a Burmese politician and physician. He was one of the founders of the National Democratic Force (NDF) party, after working for the National League for Democracy ( ...
, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (2010–2014)
* Kyaw Thu Ya, Central Youth Leader (2012–2015)