By NYAN HLAING LYNN | FRONTIER
NAY PYI TAW — National League for Democracy lawmaker U Sein Win has formally resigned from the governing party and has asked the election commission for permission to retain his seat as an independent MP, Frontier has learned.
Sein Win, 60, who represents the Ayeyarwady Region seat of Maubin, is expected to remain in the Pyithu Hluttaw to serve out his term, after the NLD accepted his resignation on Thursday.
“Normally, the written permission of the relevant party his also needed,” to notify the parliament of a change in party affiliation, an official from the Union Election Commission, who requested anonymity, told Frontier. “If he wants to stay as an independent, we can assign him that way.”
Sein Win joined the NLD in 2011. He was one of 37 NLD candidates elected to the Pyithu Hluttaw in the 2012 by-elections, alongside State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and easily retained Maubin in the 2015 poll that brought the NLD to power.
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Relations between the MP and the party deteriorated last year, after Sein Win attempted to file a lawsuit against four people, including regional lawmaker U Thet Ko Lay (NLD, Maubin-2), on charges of deception and defamation. Sein Win alleged the group had illegally handed out pamphlets relating to farmers’ affairs that bore his signature.
Last November, he was removed from his chairmanship of the Farmers and Workers Affairs Committee last November.
The day before his July 14 resignation, he was publicly scolded by Pyithu speaker U Win Myint during a parliamentary discussion about a report from the Investment and Industrial Development Committee, a body Sein Win had criticised during debate.
He is the first sitting lawmaker to resign from the party, more than five years after it first gained parliamentary representation in Myanmar.
Initially reluctant to give public comment on his resignation, Sein Win confirmed his resignation to Frontier on Friday afternoon.
“I am going to stand as an independent MP and will be focused on farmers’ affairs,” he said.
NLD representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
