United Democratic Party (UDP)

The party was founded by Burmese exiles in Canada. It recruited politicians inside Myanmar to mount unsuccessful runs in the 2010 and 2015 elections. In the 2020 elections, the UDP had planned to field the second-largest number of candidates of any party, outnumbered only by the NLD. But the Union Election Commission on Oct. 17 ordered the dissolution of the UDP, better known as the Rose Party, after determining it had received funding from illegal sources. Some of its candidates and members switched allegiance to the main opposition USDP.


Kyaw Myint

He is also known as Michael Hua Hu or Zahkung Zung Sau. He was arrested on Sept. 29 in Yangon over his alleged escape from a Mandalay prison in the late 1990s where he was serving a 10-year sentence for violating business laws. After his arrest, he was accused of having financially supported the UDP with money illegally transferred from China. Kyaw Myint has claimed he played a key role in the ethnic Wa breakaway from the Communist Party (Burma) in 1989, but others have questioned the veracity of that claim.