Polls open in Myanmar as military holds first elections since 2021 coup | Political news

Polling stations have opened in Myanmar’s first general election since the country’s military overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a 2021 coup.

THE heavily restricted Sunday’s elections are taking place in about 102 of the Southeast Asian country’s 330 townships, with a civil war raging between the military and a range of opposition forces and ethnic armed groups.

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After the initial phase, two rounds of voting will take place on January 11 and 25, while voting has been completely canceled in 65 municipalities.

In Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, polling stations opened at 6 a.m. (11:30 p.m. GMT, Saturday) on Sunday, with only a small number of voters turning out to cast their ballots.

“It looks like an election. We have all the necessary elements in place. There are registration stations here. But we have not yet seen a rush of voters,” said Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Yangon.

“The question is how many people are going to take advantage of the opportunity to vote. When you look at the ballot, there are only a few choices. The vast majority of those choices are military parties,” he said.

The election has been derided by critics – including the United Nations, some Western countries and human rights groups – as an exercise that is neither free, fair nor credible, in which anti-military political parties do not compete.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who was deposed by the military months after her National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last general election in 2020, remains in detention and her party has been dissolved.

The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development (USDP) party is expected to become the largest party, in what critics see as a renaming of martial rule.

The military, which has ruled Myanmar since 2021, said the vote was a chance for a fresh start, politically and economically, for the nation of 55 million, with General Min Aung Hlaing consistently presenting the elections as a path to reconciliation.

The polls will “turn a new page for Myanmar, shifting the narrative from a conflict-affected and crisis-ridden country to a new chapter of hope for building peace and rebuilding the ‘economy,'” an opinion piece in state-run newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar said on Saturday.

But with the fights still rage In many parts of the country, elections are taking place in an environment of violence and repression, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said last week.

“There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly that permit free and meaningful participation of the population,” said Turk, the high commissioner for human rights.

The civil war, sparked by the 2021 coup, has killed around 90,000 people, displaced 3.5 million and left nearly half of Myanmar’s 55 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 22,000 people are currently detained for political crimes.

In downtown Yangon, train stations were cordoned off overnight, with security personnel stationed outside, while armed officers guarded intersections.

Among the early voters, Swe Maw, 45, rejected international criticism.

“It’s not an important issue,” he told the AFP news agency. “There are always people who like it and who don’t like it.”

In total, only around a hundred people voted in the two offices during their first hour of opening, according to an AFP count.

“There is no way this election will be free and fair,” said Moe Moe Myint, who has spent the past two months “on the run” from military airstrikes.

“How can we support elections organized by the junta when this army has destroyed our lives? » she told AFP from a village in the central Mandalay region.

“We are homeless, hidden in the jungle and living between life and death,” said the 40-year-old.

The second round of voting will take place in two weeks, before the third and final round on January 25. The dates for counting votes and announcing election results have not been announced.

Analysts say the military’s attempt to establish a stable administration amid widespread conflict is fraught with risks and that meaningful international recognition is unlikely for a military-controlled government – even if it has a civilian veneer.