Conflict-ravaged Myanmar Goes to the Polls in Widely Criticised 'Sham' Election.
Myanmar is going to the polls in a electoral process widely dismissed as a farce, with key opposition groups banned, many of their leaders jailed and a significant portion of the country unable to participate because of an continuing civil war.
A Staggered Vote Amid Conflict
The military government is conducting a staggered election nearly five years after it took control in a coup, which sparked widespread opposition and escalated into a devastating conflict.
Observers say the military regime, with China's support, is attempting to validate and consolidate its power as it looks for a way out of the devastating deadlock.
"There are no conditions for the practice of the freedoms of free speech, association or peaceful assembly," the United Nations' top human rights official Volker TĂŒrk said.
More than 200 people have been prosecuted for disrupting or opposing the election under a recently enacted legislation which imposes severe punishments, including the death penalty.
Film director Mike Tee, actor Kyaw Win Htut and comedian Ohn Daing were among the well-known individuals found guilty under the law, which was passed in July. They were each given a seven-year jail term after criticising a promotional video endorsing the elections.
Logistical Nightmare and Coercion
Civilians are "being coerced from all sides," Mr TĂŒrk said in a statement, pointing out that resistance forces have issued their own threats asking people to boycott the polls.
The military has been engaged on multiple battlefields, against both armed resistance groups who oppose the coup, as well as ethnic armed organisations which have their own militias. It lost control of large parts of the country in a string of defeats, but clawed back territory this year after sustained aerial bombardment made possible through support from China and Russia.
All of this and the fact that significant regions of the country are still under rebel administration presents a huge operational hurdle for conducting an election.
A Restricted Poll
The ballot is set to take place in three phases over the next month in two hundred and seventy-four of the country's three hundred and thirty townships, with the rest deemed not secure enough. Results are expected around the end of January.
There is unlikely to be any voting in up to fifty percent of the country. Even in the townships that are voting, not all constituencies will go to the polls, making it difficult to predict a possible turnout.
A handful of parties, including the junta-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party, are fielding candidates nationwide, while another 51 parties and non-aligned contenders will contest only at the state or regional levels.
Approximately forty groups, including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy, which achieved decisive wins in 2015 and 2020, have been banned. Suu Kyi and a number of the party's senior figures have been jailed under charges widely condemned as fabricated, while others are in hiding abroad.
International Condemnation
"Through dividing the vote into phases, the junta can change their approach if the outcomes in the first phase do not go their way," commented Htin Kyaw Aye, a spokesman of the watchdog group Spring Sprouts.
Nations in the West, including the United Kingdom and the EU legislature, have rejected the vote as a pretence, while regional bloc Asean has called for negotiations to come before any election.
The Burmese junta has dismissed criticism of the polls, maintaining that it aims to "return [the country] to a multi-party democratic system".
"This vote is being held for Myanmar. It is being held for the people of Myanmar. It is not intended for the outside world," a military representative told a briefing last week.
Military leader Min Aung Hlaing cautioned earlier this week that those who refuse to vote are turning their back on "progress toward democracy".
