An ultra-nationalist monk, U Wirathu, delivered a sermon in a village in Nga Pu Taw Township Ayeyarwady Region on 9 February, which included full praise to former president U Thein Sein and criticism to the current government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD). The subject of the sermon at Kyone Ku village was to guide people on how to get access to the heaven. However, many people who came to listen sermon were unhappy over inclusion of politic in U Wirathu’s preaching and half of the participants left in the middle of U Wirathu’s sermon to show their disapproval. A resident of Nga Pu Taw, U Ye Maung Maung Lwin, said those left the sermon ceremony were not the people from Kyone Ku village. He said the village support the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which was previously led by U Thein Sein. “This is native village of U Thein Sein, schools, hospitals, roads, water supply are provided,” he said. U Ye Maung Maung Lwin said the sermon on guide to heaven was held for five days and U Wirathu was invited by supporters of USDP to give sermon on the third night. He said although Nga Pu Taw has to face water shortage, however, president Thein Sein during his term as president provided support to avoid water scarcity in Kyone Ku village. “In addition, schools, hospitals as well as roads and bridges were built by former president, the village has 24 hour electricity supply,” U Ye Maung Maung Lwin said. An eyewitness said, “U Wirathu was not the only speaker in the event there were five monks who preached, one for each night, the other monks gave sermon according to the theme of the event. But U Wirathu spoke about protection of race and religion matters as well as praise to U Thein Sein and reiterated his call to the government to declare that Rohingya are non-existence in Myanmar. After he starts talking about politic people started to leave I think people who left behind were from Kyone Ku village”. In his criticism to the NLD U Wirathu said “president U Thein Sein also had to work within the limitations and restrictions posed by 2008 Constitution. U Thein Sein had to work under the 2008 Constitution so as the current NLD government. The difference between the two governments is this government has international support, which was lacking for the previous one. Despite of having the international support the current government could not perform well, they put all the blames on the 2008 Constitution for their failures instead of accepting the fact that they are incompetent. They are saying because of 2008 Constitution and due to budget constraint they could not perform well, but they are not accepting the fact that they have no good will for the country”. U Wirathu added that U Thein Sein was very clear on Rohingya issue he proposed to send them to a third country. He said both NLD and 88 Generation student group have not stand together with the ethnic people and are sympathetic towards the Rakhine people who were attacked. The sermon ceremony was reported in a video posted on Facebook first posted by Zarni Theik. Together with the post, Zarni Theik wrote a comment that he was surprised to see many security forces from the Ministry of Home Affairs deployed at the sermon ceremony had not acted despite of criticism against the government. The post was shared among 9255 Facebook users. Remark: A protest march, organised by the NLD to call for amendment of article 59 f and 436 of 2008 Constitution was held in Nga Pu Taw in 2014 and 300 people joined the protest at that time. In 2015 elections, USDP won one seat out of two seats for the regional assembly and the NLD won seat for the upper house and the remaining one seat for the regional assembly. https://www.facebook.com/zarni.htike.3?fref=ts Reference : BHRN