The government and Tatmadaw (military) prioritise peace talks after the elections, aiming to achieve a breakthrough in the negotiations that moved little during the last five years, a senior military official said.
Major General Zaw Min Tun, chair of Tatmadaw Ture News Information Team, said the Tatmadaw vowed to continue peace talks not only with the signatory groups to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) but even to ethnic groups that have yet to sign the truce.
The Tatmadaw position appears to be a compromise from its original stance that ethnic groups must first sign the NCA before they can join the peace process.
"We must continue the peace talks to accomplish the goal of sustainable peace," he told The Myanmar Times. "It is necessary to continue peace talks as soon as possible."
At present the government and military is only engaging with the 10 ethnic armed groups that signed the NCA, although they are still wooing seven other major armed groups to sign the truce.
During the first five years of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) government, the peace process hung in limbo and ground to a halt for over a year due to disagreements and mistrusts, especially between the military and the armed groups.
It was only during the fourth round of the Union Peace Conference – the 21st Century Panglong held in August that the peace process was brought back to life.
To show its determination to move forward the peace process after the November 8 elections, the Military formed a peace talk committee headed by Lieutenant General Yar Pyae.
The committee, which was established a day after the conduct of the elections, will reach out to all out groups, including those who have yet to sign the NCA, in order to find a common ground that will eventually lead to a peace agreement.
Lieutenant General Yar Pyae and the other members of the committee, are all involved in the ongoing Panglong Conference so they are already familiar with all the issues related to the negotiations.
On the other hand, the government also vowed to talk with all the ethnic armed groups in a bid to be able to achieve a federal union with the second term of the NLD.
U Zaw Htay , the spokesperson of the president office ,said the new government will be found as a National Unity Government and would continue to put peace building on top of its agenda in order to put an end to the country’s decades-old armed conflicts.
"We have reviewed the peace process and put the peace process as a preferential topic post 2020," he said.
Leaders of the ethnic armed groups that signed the NCA said they welcomed the renewed fervor displayed by both the government and the Tatmadaw to move forward the peace process.
The Union Election Commission has yet to declare the official winner of the electoral exercise but unofficial and partial counts showed that the NLD swept the election, winning more seats than the landslide win it registered during the 2015 election.
A military source said the Tatmadaw respects the results of the election, which local and foreign observers described as peaceful and orderly.
Earlier on November 8, Myanmar military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing assured the people that the military will respect the decision of the electorate, as long as the results reflects the true will of the people.
The senior general said it is important to allay the worries and concerns of the people after the intense two months political campaigning, hobbled by the COVID-19 pandemic that is wreaking havoc to the country.
A pre-election survey conducted by the local election watch group showed that ending the ‘pocket wars’ that plagued the country for over 70 years is one of the three main expectations of the people from the NLD government.
