Myanmar’s junta chief said that the country plans to hold elections in December and January next year, state media reported yesterday.
The military deposed Myanmar’s civilian government in a 2021 coup that sparked a many-sided civil war, but has promoted its election plans as a pathway to peace.
With members of the former government locked away, opposition groups set to boycott the vote and huge tracts of the country controlled by anti-junta rebels, observers say a fair poll is impossible.
Photo: Reuters
State newspaper the Global New Light of Myanmar reported that junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, speaking at a conference in the capital, Naypyidaw, on Wednesday, “pledged that the election will be held in December this year and January next year.”
“Most importantly, the elections must be free and fair,” he said.
It is not clear whether the junta plans to hold the election in phases — a potential sign it would struggle to guarantee security on a single nationwide polling day — or whether the timetable includes a campaign period.
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews on Wednesday said that the junta is “trying to create this mirage of an election exercise that will create a legitimate civilian government.”
“You cannot have an election when you imprison and torture and execute your opponents, when it is illegal to report the truth as a journalist, when it’s illegal to speak out and criticize the junta,” Andrews told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.
A junta census last year to prepare for the poll said that the government could not collect data from an estimated 19 million of the country’s 51 million people, in part because of significant security constraints.
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