Myanmar’s junta yesterday said that long-promised elections would start on Dec. 28, despite a raging civil war that has put much of the nation out of its control and international monitors slating the poll as a charade.
Myanmar has been consumed by conflict since the military deposed the government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, making unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.
Swathes of the nation are beyond military control — administered by a myriad of pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic armed organizations which have pledged to block polls in their enclaves.
Photo: AFP
“The first phase of the multiparty democratic general election for each parliament will begin on Sunday 28 December 2025,” Myanmar’s Union Election Commission said in a statement.
“Dates for the subsequent phases will be announced later,” the statement added.
Myanmar’s civil war has killed thousands, left more than half the nation in poverty and has displaced more than 3.5 million people.
The junta has touted elections as a way to end the conflict and offered cash rewards to opposition fighters willing to lay down their arms ahead of the vote.
However, Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed, while many opposition lawmakers ousted by the coup are boycotting it and a UN expert has branded the vote a “fraud” designed to rebrand continuing military rule.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is currently ruling Myanmar as acting president, also serving as the chief of the armed forces which has ruled the nation for most of its post-independence history.
Analysts say the election would likely see Min Aung Hlaing maintain his power over any new government.
Meanwhile, the vote might cause further splits in already fractious array of opposition groups as they weigh whether to participate in the poll, they said.
A census held last year as preparation for the election estimated it failed to collect data from 19 million of the nation’s 51 million people.
The results cited “significant security constraints” as one reason for the shortfall — a sign of how limited the reach of the election could be amid the civil war.
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