Myanmar politics

The MNDAA says that it is close to capturing Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang region in Shan State, a hub of online gambling and cyber-fraud operations.

"The difference to the past," says economist Sean Turnell, "is that this junta does not seem to even pretend anymore that it has any sort of vision for Myanmar."

The extension is an admission that the military has failed to quell the broad-based armed resistance to its rule.

The country's prospects of democracy and development "have been repeatedly thwarted by a predatory military and an indifferent international community."

The country's neighbors continue to treat the military administration like a viable sovereign entity. They risk being left behind by events.

The National Unity Government is bereft of any meaningful external support while the junta has been well assisted by its fellow authoritarians since the 2021 coup.

The holiday amnesty is designed to depict the military administration as beneficent, and hence politically legitimate.

Aside from further embittering the population toward the military junta, the disbanding of the former ruling party is unlikely to have much impact on Myanmar's downward trajectory.

Given how central ethnic armed groups and political movements are to Myanmar's conflicts, how we define them carries a great deal of political weight.

For their own interests, if nothing else, India, Thailand, and China need to throw their support behind the country's resistance movement.

The six-month extension is likely to delay the "elections" that the coup government was planning to hold by August.

The military junta's possible handover of power to a quasi-civilian "transition council" could create complications for the country's resistance forces.