Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Three top leaders of the New Mon State Party, which has rejected the junta’s offer of bringing its troops into a junta-controlled Border Guard Force, resigned from the party on May 18, a party spokesman said.

The party accepted the resignations tendered by party joint secretary Nai Chan Twe and central executive committee members Nai Tin La and Nai Kho Sap, who no longer wanted to work for the party, Nai Chay Mon said.

Nai Tin La had served for party for 25 years and Nai Chan Twe and Nai Kho Sap had served for party for at least 30 years. “They might want a change as they have been [participating] in revolution for a long time”, Nai Chay Mon said.

The relationship between the New Mon State Party and Burma’s military regime is tense and both sides are on standby for military action.

Those who resigned from the party might support a new ethnic Mon group, the All Mon Region Democracy Party (AMRDP), the NMSP speculated. The AMRDP’s registration with the Election Commission was approved on May 24.

AMRDP nominated 53 candidates to stand for election and would be led by retired Mon State education chief Nai Ngwe Thein. It was formed in Mawlamyaing on April 7 and intended to contest the election in Mon and Karen states and in Tanintharyi and Pegu divisions, the party chairman told Kaowao, the Mon news agency based in Thailand.