2 | AN ELECTION COMMISSION UNLAWFULLY INSTALLED Among the first steps taken by the Tatmadaw during the coup was the arrest of Union Election Commission (UEC) chair U Hla Thein and members U Myint Naing and U Than Htay, alongside President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The three UEC officials were targeted by the military for performing their duties and successfully holding the 2020 general election. They were later sentenced by a junta tribunal to three years in prison under Section 130(a) of the Penal Code, which sanctions negligence by civil servants of provisions in the constitution or any law. U Hla Thein and U Myint Naing were freed in October 2022 after their sentences were commuted by the junta as a gesture of “goodwill3”. More election officials were reportedly arrested following the coup and pressured into signing false confessions. In his very first order as acting president on 1 February 2021, Tatmadaw appointee Myint Swe claimed that the UEC “had not only failed to perform their duties but also neglected to ensure free, fair, and transparent elections4”. He appointed a new election commission the next day, led by U Thein Soe, a former army major general who had previously led the UEC during the 2010 general election, which was widely regarded as not free and fair. On 26 July 2021, the junta-appointed commission annulled the results of the 2020 general election. However, neither the 2008 3 4 14 Eleven Myanmar, “Sentences to former UEC Chairman U Hla Thein and UEC member U Myint Naing relaxed: SAC Information Team”, 11 November 2022, https://elevenmyanmar.com/news/ sentences-to-former-uec-chairman-u-hla-thein-and-uec-member-u-myint-naing-relaxed-sac Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Office of the President, Order Number (1/2021), in Global New Light of Myanmar, 2 February 2021, https://www.moi.gov.mm/nlm/sites/default/files/newspaperpdf/2021-02/2_Feb_21_gnlm.pdf