Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
Observers on Monday dismissed plans announced by Myanmar’s junta to hold elections in the war-torn country by January, saying the military won’t be able to hold the vote in territory it doesn’t control — about half the country — and that the public will view the results as a sham.
On March 7, while on a visit to Russia and Belarus, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced that the elections are “slated for December 2025, with the possibility of ... January 2026,” according to a report by the official Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.
On Sunday, a day after Min Aung Hlaing returned to Myanmar from his March 3-9 trip, junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun confirmed the timing of the ballot in a briefing to military-controlled media outlets.
The generals who seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat hope that elections will end widespread opposition to their grip on power politics.
But opponents say any vote under the military while the most popular politicians are locked up and their parties are banned will be illegitimate.
Additionally, the junta is in control of only about half the country after significant losses to pro-democracy and ethnic minority insurgents fighting to end military rule, and observers on Monday questioned how the results of such a limited vote could be seen as legitimate.
Sai Leik, the general secretary of the ethnic Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, which has not yet filed its party registration, told RFA Burmese it is “uncertain whether the election will take place at all.”
Even if it happens, it will likely be limited to cities such as Yangon, Naypyidaw, and Mandalay, he said. “This will create significant tensions between areas where the election is held and those where it is not.”
Sai Leik said that a limited election that fails to reflect the will of the people “will only worsen the conflict between opposing sides.”
He noted that the junta has repeatedly vowed to hold an election since August 2022, but has been unable to implement one.
Less than half of townships under junta control
Voting is expected to be held in fewer than half of Myanmar’s 330 townships in the first phase of a staggered vote, a political party official said late last year after discussion with election organizers.
In Myanmar’s last election in 2020, voting was held in 315 out of the 330 townships.
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, or NLD, party swept the vote, as it did in a 2015 election, but the army complained of cheating and overthrew her government. The junta jailed her in the aftermath of its coup and has since sentenced her to 27 years in prison.
Political commentator Than Soe Naing said that the people of Myanmar won’t trust a junta-run election.
“Even if the junta attempts it, it will never happen,” he said.
Than Soe Naing said that past attempts by the junta had been stymied by its lack of territorial control, the ongoing conflict across Myanmar, the lack of security for representatives and campaigns, and the restrictions of the junta-backed election commission.
Rather than taking those concerns into account, Hla Thein, a spokesperson for the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party told RFA that Min Aung Hlaing likely chose the end of the year for elections so that political parties and the election commission “will have more time to prepare.”
Independent observers?
Meanwhile, Min Aung Hlaing said on Sunday that Russia and Belarus had committed to sending officials to observe the elections in Myanmar.
But a vote monitored by those two countries cannot be considered “free and fair,” an election observer who requested anonymity for security reasons said.
“Russia and Belarus are not really countries with a good reputation for democratic, free and fair elections,” the observer said. “And since they have stood with and supported the junta in various ways, their observers won’t be fair. They are meant only for political support.”
So far, more than 50 parties have registered with and been approved by Myanmar’s election commission. Nearly all of them are military-aligned, while the country’s most popular party — the NLD — was banned in the aftermath of the coup and cannot be added to the ballot.
Tun Myint, an NLD Central Working Committee member, warned that the junta’s elections would be nothing more than a “sham.”
“No one ... who wants justice will accept the junta’s elections,” he said.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.