Updated March 26, 2025, at 5:55 p.m. ET.
Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
Myanmar’s junta announced Wednesday it plans to hold a national election in four phases in December and January, the first time the military has outlined a detailed schedule for the controversial vote.
The junta has been promising a multiparty elections since soon after it seized power from a civilian government in February 2021.
But those promises have failed to materialize as the country has been engulfed in a civil war that has left thousands dead and tanked the economy. The military only controls about half of the country, raising questions about the viability of a nationwide vote.
Instead the junta has repeatedly extended a state of emergency, prolonging its grip on power.
However, in early March, the junta said elections were slated for December 2025. Then on Wednesday, the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services issued a statement providing more details about what it said would be a vote in four phases.
“A provisional date for the election is set on the third week and fourth week of December this year and first week and second week of January,” the statement said.
“The government must take advanced measures to hold a fraud-free multi-party democracy general election that is truly free and fair,” it added, without elaborating.
Despite widespread skepticism in the West and inside Myanmar about the junta’s ability and intention to hold fair elections, in recent months Myanmar’s junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has won international support from authoritarian regimes for his vote plans.
Following his diplomatic visits to Russia and Belarus in March, both governments pledged their backing.
They joined India and China, which have also expressed support for the isolated nation’s electoral process, despite the military regime’s decision to bar some political parties from re-registering due to alleged ties to rebel militias.
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Human rights groups and officials from the ousted National League for Democracy, or NLD, government reject the legitimacy of a junta-led election after an opaque census left dozens of administrators dead and failed to cover large parts of the country.
Insurgent groups now control large swathes of the country’s borderlands, and chunks of its heartlands, leaving the areas like Rakhine and Shan states under uncertain jurisdiction with minimal junta presence.
Despite the junta’s claim it wants to hold multi-party elections, there are also serious doubts over its willingness stage a fair vote after it announced the dissolution of the former-ruling National League for Democracy in 2023. The party’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is in prison, convicted on what are widely viewed as politically motivated charges.
The military rejected the results of the last elections in November 2020, based on unsubstantiated allegations of vote fraud. In that vote, the main pro-military party was heavily defeated by the NLD.
This week, the military held talks in the capital Naypyidaw with representatives of some ethnic armed groups and political parties, and dismissed the suggestion the military should step away from politics.
Lt. Gen. Yar Pyae, chairman of the National Solidarity and Peacemaking Negotiation Committee, described that as an impossible demand.
“We do not have any conditions. Other groups have conditions. There are impossible demands such as withdrawing the military from politics, disbanding the army, or forming a transitional government. They demanded that these conditions must be met before any discussions can happen,” he said Wednesday.
However, he added that the military was open to discussion and negotiation, even on these demands.
The spokesperson for the rebel Karen National Union, Saw Taw Nee, said the military should be pressured to withdraw from politics.
“It is our responsibility to make the impossible happen. Whether through military means, political methods, diplomatic isolation, or economic sanctions, we will continue to apply pressure with public movements,” he told RFA Burmese.
The shadow National Unity Government -- which includes elements of the former civilian government -- and resistance forces, including the KNU, have said they will only negotiate with the military if it withdraws from politics and a civilian government is in place.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mat Pennington.
Updated to add comments from a junta representative saying the military will not withdraw from politics. Edits throughout.