Civil war rages on in Myanmar, stoking instability, yet the military junta organizes elections, in 3 phases, criticized by most international organizations.
Those doubting the fairness of the vote include the United Nations, some Western countries and human rights groups.
With fighting still raging in parts of the country, the elections are being held in an environment of violence and repression, UN human rights chief Volker Turk recently said.
The credibility of the polls is in doubt but voters in Myanmar were casting their ballots in a general election on Sunday morning. These are the first elections since the military coup in 2021, that toppled the civilian government.
The military junta says the vote is a chance for a fresh start politically and economically for the impoverished country.
Nobel laureate still in detention
Reuters reports that Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, deposed by the military months after her National League for Democracy won the last general election in 2020, remains in detention, and the political party she led to power has been dissolved.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said the next president will be elected by the new parliament, out of the vote today. Reuters mentioned that he showed people his ink stained finger, after having voted, as in Myanmar, voters must dip a finger into indelible ink after casting a ballot to ensure they don’t vote more than once.
Potential president
Asked by reporters if he would like to become the country’s president, as some analysts predict, the general said he wasn’t the leader of any political party.
Mass protests followed the ouster of Nobel laureate Suu Kyi’s party, but were violently suppressed by the military. Many protesters then took up arms against the junta in what became a nationwide rebellion.
In this election, the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party, led by retired generals that has one-fifth of all candidates is set to return to power, because the competition is quite diminished, said to Reuters, Lalita Hanwong, a lecturer and Myanmar expert at Thailand’s Kasetsart University.
“The junta’s election is designed to prolong the military’s power of slavery over people, and USDP and other allied parties with the military will join forces to form the next government” said Lalita Hanwong.
Following the initial phase, two rounds of voting will be held on January 11 and January 25, covering 265 of Myanmar’s 330 townships, although the junta does not have complete control of all those areas as it fights in the civil war that has consumed the country since the coup.
Dates for counting votes and announcing election results have not been declared.
