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View all search resultsASEAN must not legitimize a sham election in Myanmar
More than 200 people have been charged for disrupting or opposing the polls in Myanmar under a new law that carries severe penalties, including the death sentence.
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Junta gamble: People look for their name on the registry at a polling station on Dec. 28, during the first phase of Myanmar’s general election in Yangon. Polling opened in Myanmar’s heavily restricted junta-run elections, beginning a month-long vote democracy watchdogs describe as a rebranding of military rule. (AFP/Lillian Suwanrumpha)
T
his week marks Myanmar’s first so-called “general election” since the 2021 military coup, an exercise staged under the shadow of civil war, mass displacement and pervasive repression. The junta promotes the election as a route back to democratic rule. In reality, it is the opposite: a carefully engineered spectacle designed to launder authoritarian power through the language and imagery of democracy.
The 2025–2026 polls are being conducted in three staggered phases. This format reflects not administrative innovation, but the inability of the junta to control national territory.
Of Myanmar’s 330 townships, the first phase on Sunday saw voting in only 102. The second, on Jan. 11, 2026, will be held in 100 townships, and the third round, slated for Jan. 25, is expected to reach 63. Nine townships remain without a scheduled date, and 56 have been cancelled entirely for “security reasons”, a euphemism for ongoing conflict or territorial loss. In many areas, it is simply impossible to establish polling stations because the junta no longer governs there.
The political field has been systematically engineered to guarantee a predetermined outcome. In January 2023, the junta introduced a new Political Parties Registration Law, requiring all parties to re-register under criteria designed to exclude major opponents. In March 2023, the government dissolved 40 parties, including the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won approximately 82 percent of parliamentary seats in the 2020 election.
Only six parties are permitted to field candidates nationwide, including the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the National Unity Party, the People’s Pioneer Party, the Shan and Nationalities Democratic Party, the People’s Party and the Myanmar Farmer’s Development Party. Most are limited to local races, leaving the USDP with little more than symbolic competition. Under these conditions, uncertainty is impossible. The outcome is not contested, it is arranged.
There should be no confusion. Where ballots appear, they do not confer legitimacy. This is authoritarian consolidation masquerading as an election. The junta is not holding elections where it should, but only where it can. Participation is determined not by citizenship but by military reach. Any vote held in such an environment reflects the collapse of state legitimacy, not its renewal.
The space for dissent has been violently constricted. Media reports indicate that more than 200 people have been charged for disrupting or opposing the polls under a new law that carries severe penalties, including the death sentence. Young people have been jailed for anti-election posters; journalists face intimidation; civil servants are pressured to participate. To abstain is dangerous; to criticize is criminal.
