The New Mon State Party (NMSP) has explained its decision to invite only the Mon National Party (MNP) to its 9th Congress without extending requests to two other ethnic Mon political parties.
“The MNP is a member of UNA [United Nationalities Alliance],” said NMSP Vice-Chairman Nai Hongsar in a January 10 interview with the Mon News Agency. “The UNA has connections with UNFC [United Nationalities Federal Council). Regarding our activities, views and programs, we are very similar. So we invited the MNP to our congress as an observer.”
“We do not discriminate between one or another organization and one or another party. But we do not have much contact [with the other parties], so we did not invite them to the congress.”
Nai Hongsar added that the other groups, the All Mon Regions Democracy Party and the Women’s Party (Mon), are not as closely aligned with the NMSP.
Before a recent name change, the MNP was called the Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF), founded in 1988. Former MNDF leaders, including Nai Tun Thein and Nai Ngwe Thein, led the first ethnic Mon armed resistance group, the Mon People’s Front. The two groups worked together in 1995 when the NMSP signed a ceasefire agreement with the previous government.
“The MNP [MNDF at the time] and 5 representatives won [seats] in the 1990 elections. At that time, [NMSP] Chairman Nai Shwe Kyin set up an alliance with the MNDF. We can call it the first alliance. We invited [MNP to the January meeting] based on the political alliance,” said Nai Aye Mon of NMSP’s Central Executive Committee.
NMSP’s 9th party congress commenced on December 27 and concluded today [January 14]. In addition to representatives from the party, several prominent Mon monks, ethnic Mon leaders and members of MNP were invited.
