On 28 October 2013, the Burmese election commission approved the Federal Union Party's application to enter federal politics in Myanmar. The party was established by sixteen members of the Nationalities Brotherhood Forum, which contained most of the country's major ethnic minority political parties. Saw Than Myint, one of 16 founding members and the current Vice Chairman, said that the party was designed to give the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) competition in majority Burmese areas of the country.[2]
We don't like the fact that [Burmese] political parties contest in our ethnic minority areas but we can't deter them under democracy. So we have formed this new ethnic party to contest in the seven [Burmese] regions; we've already agreed that the central executive committee will feature 25 or 30 members and 16 parties can be involved proportionally in it.
