Shan and Nationalities Democratic Party
Political party in Myanmar
The Shan and Nationalities Democratic Party (Burmese: ရှမ်းနှင့် တိုင်းရင်းသားများ ဒီမိုကရက်တစ်ပါတီ [ʃáɴ táɪɴjɪ́ɴðámjá dìmòkərɛʔtɪʔ pàtì]; abbreviated SNDP), also known as the White Tiger Party or Kya Phyu Party, formerly the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party is a nation-wide contested political party in Myanmar.
Unlike the similarly named Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), the party prefers the status quo of 7 states and 7 regions, rather than the SNLD's preference for a federal system with 8 states.
01History
The party was formally registered in April 2010. The party's headquarters are in South Okkalapa Township, Yangon, and its chairman since founding is Sai Aik Paung, a former member of the central executive committee of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy.
In the 2010 general election, the party contested seats in Shan State, Kachin State and the Mandalay Region. After the 2010 general election, the two SNDP representatives in the Shan State Hluttaw, Sai Aik Paung and Sai Naw Kham, were appointed ethnic affairs ministers of Shan State.
In December 2011, the party's head office moved to Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State. It later moved to the Yangon region.
After the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état the party met with the regime appointed Union Election Commission and took part in the Political Parties Group of the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee, that aimed to represent the interests of political parties willing to work with the military regime, with party chairman Sai Aik Paung chairing the group.
The party was re-registered as a political party in 2023, after the regime enacted a new law on political parties. It changed its name to Shan and Nationalities Democratic Party to allow it to field candidates outside of Shan State and run as one of the six nation-wide contested parties. It ran candidates in the regime-controlled 2025-26 Myanmar general election and became the second largest elected group in the Pyithu Hluttaw with 6 seats, behind the military-dominated Union Solidarity and Development Party that won 233 seats. Party chairman Sai Aik Paung protested the conduct of the elections as unfair and alleged ballot manipulations by the regime.
02Election results
House of Nationalities (Amyotha Hluttaw)
| Election | Leader | Total seats won | Total votes | Share of votes | +/, | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Sai Aik Paung | 3 / 224 | 496,039 | 3 | Opposition | |
| (after) 2012 | 4 / 224 | , N/a | 1 | Opposition | ||
| 2015 | 0 / 224 | 123,198 | 0.54% | 4 | Extra-Parliamentary | |
| 2020 | 0 / 224 | 99,853 | 0.37% | 0 | Results annulled | |
| 2025-26 | 1 / 224 | 867,536 | 6.86% | 1 | TBA | |
House of Representatives (Pyithu Hluttaw)
| Election | Leader | Total seats won | Total votes | Share of votes | +/, | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Sai Aik Paung | 18 / 440 | 508,780 | 2.44% | 18 | Opposition |
| (after) 2012 | 18 / 440 | , N/a | 0 | Opposition | ||
| 2015 | 0 / 440 | 120,815 | 0.54% | 18 | Extra-Parliamentary | |
| 2020 | 0 / 440 | 94,155 | 0.35% | 0 | Results annulled | |
| 2025-26 | 7 / 440 | 802,414 | 6.16% | 7 | TBA | |
By-election
| Election | Seats up for election | Seats contested by party | Contested seats won | Contested seats lost | Total votes | Share of votes | Outcome of election |
| 2012 | 37 (Pyithu) / 5 (Amyotha) | 1 (Pyithu) / 3 (Amyotha) | 0 (Pyithu) / 1 (Amyotha) | 1 (Pyithu) / 2 (Amyotha) | 1 seat gain from USDP | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 13 (Pyithu) / 6 (Amyotha) |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Shan and Nationalities Democratic Party”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Shan Nationalities Democratic Party voting logo.jpg by Unknown author, Fair use
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