Independent Party (Burma)
{{Short description|Pro-British political party in Burma during the 1920s and 1930s}}
{{Politics of Burma}}
The Independent Party, also known as the Golden Valley Party,Maung Maung (2012) Burma's Constitution, Springer Science & Business Media, p29 was a pro-British political party in Burma during the 1920s and 1930s. Its leadership included Joseph Augustus Maung Gyi, U Khin and U May Oung. Oscar de Glanville was also a party leader.
History
The party was established as the Progressive Party in 1922,Nirmal Chandra Sen (1945) A peep into Burma politics, Kitabistan, p18 evolving from the senior faction of the Young Men's Buddhist Association, whose members were conservative, western-educated and willing to accept the colonial system of government.Haruhiro Fukui (1985) Political parties of Asia and the Pacific, Greenwood Press, pp133−134
Although the 1922 general elections saw the 21 Party emerge as the largest party in the Legislative Council, its leader Ba Pe refused to form a government with the Golden Valley Party, allowing Maung Gyi to head the new government.[http://election.irrawaddy.org/analysis/95-here-today-gone-tomorrow.html Here Today, Gone Tomorrow] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151126055217/http://election.irrawaddy.org/analysis/95-here-today-gone-tomorrow.html |date=2015-11-26 }} The Irrawaddy, 3 November 2009
In 1925 the party was renamed the Independent Party,Sen, p27 also becoming known as the Golden Valley Party (Shwe Taung Gyar) in reference to the upper-class suburbs in which its leaders lived, but was not formally organised, nor had any popular support. The elections later that year (in which it won 20 of the 80 seats) and 1928 elections (12 seats) ended with the same outcome due to favouritism by the British authorities.
The party contested the 1932 elections calling for the separation of Burma from India, but were defeated by the anti-separatists, who won a landslide; Ba Maw of the Maw-Myint-Bye Party became Chief Minister. It failed to win a seat in the 1936 elections.