A candidate running for parliament representing Myanmar’s largest opposition party is in hospital with serious wounds after being attacked by men armed with swords.
The attack took place on Thursday night in Yangon, the country’s commercial capital, just days before parliamentary elections.
According to Nay Phone Latt, a fellow candidate from the main opposition National League for Democracy, at least five men armed with long knives attacked Naing Ngan Lin and several supporters of the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy Party (NLD).
Naing Ngan Lin is seeking re-election in the November 8 vote.
“The wounds are serious,” Nay Phone Latt told CNN.
It is not clear whether or not anyone involved in the alleged attack was brought into police custody.
A person answering the telephone Friday morning at the police station in Yangon’s Thaketa Township, where the attack allegedly took place, hung up the phone when CNN tried to reach out for comment on the incident.
Open election?
Next week’s election is expected to be the first time since 1990 that citizens of Myanmar will get a chance to choose between all of the main political parties in a parliamentary election.
The NLD was widely believed to have decisively won the election in 1990. But the country’s military regime annulled the election results, imprisoned many opposition candidates, and placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for the next 20 years.
In the last five years, Myanmar’s military rulers have released many political prisoners and relaxed tight restrictions on the media and the economy, as part of a push to open up the long-isolated country to the outside world.
Now Aung San Suu Kyi is once again leading her party as it campaigns for the upcoming contest. The country’s constitution, which was drafted by the military regime in 2008, bars the Nobel peace-prize winning opposition leader from being able to run for president because her children hold foreign passports.
Meanwhile, Nay Phone Latt called for calm in the wake of Thursday night’s attack.
“We need to be very careful,” he said, speaking to CNN by telephone.