Voters yesterday trickled to Myanmar’s heavily restricted polls, with the ruling junta touting the exercise as a return to democracy five years after it ousted the last elected government and triggered a civil war.
Former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed, while her hugely popular party has been dissolved and was not taking part.
Campaigners, Western diplomats and the UN rights chief have condemned the phased month-long vote, citing a ballot stacked with military allies and a stark crackdown on dissent.
Photo: AFP
The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party is widely expected to emerge as the largest bloc, in what critics say would be a rebranding of martial rule.
“We guarantee it to be a free and fair election,” junta chief Min Aung Hlaing told reporters after casting his ballot in the capital, Naypyidaw.
“It’s organized by the military, we can’t let our name be tarnished,” he said.
The Southeast Asian nation of about 50 million people is riven by civil war, and there would be no voting in areas controlled by rebel factions that have risen up to challenge military rule.
While opposition factions threatened to attack the election, there were no reports of violence against polling day activities by the time voting ended at 4pm.
Snaking queues of voters formed for the previous election in 2020, which the military declared void a few months later when it ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and seized power.
However, when a polling station near her vacant home closed yesterday, only about 470 of its roughly 1,700 registered voters had cast ballots, an election official said — a turnout of less than 28 percent.
Its first voter, Bo Saw, 63, said the election “will bring the best for the country.”
“The first priority should be restoring a safe and peaceful situation,” he said.
At a downtown Yangon station near the gleaming Sule Pagoda — the site of huge pro-democracy protests after the 2021 coup — 45-year-old Swe Maw dismissed international criticism.
“There are always people who like and dislike,” he said at a polling station that later reported a turnout of below 37 percent.
The run-up saw none of the feverish public rallies that Aung San Suu Kyi once commanded, and the junta has waged a withering prevote offensive to claw back territory.
“I don’t think this election will change or improve the political situation in this country,” said 23-year-old Hman Thit, displaced by the post-coup conflict.
“I think the airstrikes and atrocities on our hometowns will continue,” he said in a rebel-held area of Pekon township in Shan state.
The military ruled Myanmar for most of its post-independence history, before a 10-year interlude saw a civilian government take the reins in a burst of optimism and reform.
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