Myanmar’s military holds its first election since the 2021 coup, dismissed by critics as a sham while the country remains engulfed in civil war.
YANGON: Myanmar’s junta is presiding over voting starting Sunday, touting heavily restricted polls as a return to democracy five years after it seized power.
The military ousted the last elected government in February 2021, triggering a devastating civil war that continues to rage.
Former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed and her hugely popular National League for Democracy party has been dissolved.
International monitors have dismissed the phased month-long vote as a rebranding of martial rule.
They cite a ballot stacked with military allies and a stark crackdown on dissent across the country of around 50 million.
The vote will not take place in vast rebel-held areas where the junta does not have control.
In junta-controlled territory, the first of three rounds of voting begins Sunday, including in the cities of Yangon, Mandalay and the capital Naypyidaw.
“The military are just trying to legalise the power they took by force,” one resident of the northern city of Myitkyina told AFP, pledging to boycott the poll.
The run-up has seen none of the feverish public rallies that Suu Kyi once commanded.
“Almost no one is interested in this election,” said the Myitkyina resident, speaking anonymously for security reasons.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has promoted the polls in state media as a chance for reconciliation.
He admits the military “will continue to play a role in the country’s political leadership” after results are in.
Under Myanmar’s current constitution, 25% of parliamentary seats are reserved for the armed forces.
Suu Kyi is serving a 27-year sentence for offences that rights monitors dismiss as politically motivated.
“I don’t think she would consider these elections to be meaningful in any way,” her son Kim Aris said from Britain.
The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party is by far the biggest participant in the election.
New electronic voting machines will not allow for write-in candidates or spoiled ballots.
The junta is prosecuting more than 200 people for violating legislation forbidding “disruption” of the poll.
Around 22,000 political prisoners languish in junta jails, according to a monitoring group.
Some present the poll as the only recourse for a country deadlocked in conflict.
“I’d like to urge people to come and vote,” People’s Party leader Ko Ko Gyi told AFP.
The junta has waged a pre-vote offensive but concedes elections cannot happen in around one in seven constituencies.
An air strike on a hospital in Rakhine state this month killed more than 30 people, according to local aid workers.
“There are many ways to make peace in the country, but they haven’t chosen those,” said Zaw Tun, an officer in a pro-democracy defence force.
According to data group ACLED, 90,000 people have been killed on all sides since the coup.
Some 3.6 million people are displaced and half the nation is living in poverty, the UN says.
“I don’t think anybody believes those elections will contribute to the solution of the problems of Myanmar,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
The second round of polling is scheduled for January 11.
