Voting concluded in Myanmar’s month-long election yesterday, with the dominant pro-military party on course for landslide victory in a junta-run poll critics say would only prolong the army’s grip on power.
The Southeast Asian nation has a long history of military rule, but the generals took a back seat for a decade of civilian-led reforms.
That ended in a 2021 military coup when democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi was detained, civil war broke out, and the country descended into humanitarian crisis.
Photo: AFP
The election’s third and final phase closed after voting took place in dozens of constituencies across the country, just a week shy of the coup’s five-year anniversary.
The military pledges the election would return power to the people, but with Aung San Suu Kyi sidelined and her party dissolved, democracy advocates say the ballot is stacked with military allies.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing — who has not ruled out serving as president after the poll — toured voting stations in Mandalay, wearing civilian dress.
“This is the path chosen by the people,” he told reporters. “The people from Myanmar can support whoever they want to support.”
Voting is not being held in rebel-held parts of the country, and in junta-controlled areas rights monitors say the run-up has been characterized by coercion and the crushing of dissent.
Teacher Zaw Ko Ko Myint cast his vote at a Mandalay high school around dawn.
“Although I do not expect much, we want to see a better country,” the 53-year-old said. “I feel relieved after voting, as if I fulfilled my duty.”
The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) — packed with retired officers and described by analysts as a military puppet — won more than 85 percent of elected lower house seats and two-thirds of those in the upper house in the poll’s first two phases.
“States that endorse the results of these polls will be complicit in the junta’s attempt to legitimize military rule through a fabricated vote,” UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews said in a statement on Friday.
A military-drafted constitution also gives the armed forces one-quarter of the seats in both houses of parliament, which would vote to pick the president.
“I don’t expect anything from this election,” a 34-year-old Yangon resident said earlier, requesting anonymity for security reasons. “Things will just keep dragging on.”
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party thrashed the USDP in the last elections in 2020, before the military seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, making unfounded allegations of widespread vote-rigging.
The 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate remains detained incommunicado at an unknown location on charges rights monitors dismiss as politically motivated.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS