2015 General Election Held; Arakan National Party Wins Majority of Parliamentary Seats

On This Day in Arakan History ၊ November 8, 2015

November 8, 2015, marks the day Myanmar held its historic general election, the first nationwide vote since a nominally civilian government was installed in 2011 . While the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide victory nationally, securing 77% of all available seats, the Arakan National Party (ANP) emerged as the third-largest party nationwide and the dominant force in Rakhine State.

The ANP won 10 seats in the Amyotha Hluttaw (Upper House), 12 in the Pyithu Hluttaw (Lower House), 22 in the Rakhine State Hluttaw, and one Ethnic Affairs Minister position in Yangon’s Regional Hluttaw. This made the ANP the largest ethnic party in both the Union-level Hluttaws and State Hluttaw.

The election results demonstrated that Rakhine voters would overwhelmingly support a party explicitly representing their ethnic national interests, even as the rest of the country rallied behind the NLD.

The 2015 election results in Rakhine State were historically significant because they represented a clear exception to the NLD's national "Red Wave" . Rakhine and Shan States were the only regions where the NLD did not win a majority of seats . The ANP's victory has been explained primarily through two factors: ethnic nationalism—the party's ability to draw support from the Rakhine ethnic community—and Buddhist nationalism in response to communal antagonism against the Muslim community following the 2012 violence . However, the ANP victory was not uniform across the state. The party lost all townships in Thandwe District to the NLD, won most seats with small margins, and achieved large majorities only in Sittwe District . The exclusion of most Muslim voters in northern Maungdaw District resulted in shared victories between the ANP and USDP . Dr. Aye Maung himself conceded defeat to an NLD candidate in Manaung Township, acknowledging: "I will accept the people's choice, their decision" .

The November 8, 2015 election shaped Rakhine State's political trajectory in lasting ways. The ANP's dominance established ethnic Rakhine nationalism as the defining force in regional politics, creating a unified political front that contrasted with fragmented ethnic parties elsewhere. This unity would prove fragile—former ALD leaders split from the ANP in January 2017, and Dr. Aye Maung resigned as chairman in November 2017 due to internal conflicts.

The 2015 results also foreshadowed the NLD's ongoing weakness in Rakhine State; in the 2020 election, the ANP reclaimed townships like Manaung and Taungup that the NLD had won in 2015 . Ultimately, on July 2, 2024, Myanmar's junta barred the ANP from participating in the planned 2025 election due to alleged links with the Arakan Army.

The November 8, 2015 election thus represents the peak of unified Rakhine electoral politics—a moment when ethnic nationalism triumphed at the ballot box, only to later fragment and eventually be sidelined as armed conflict came to dominate Rakhine State's future.