Elections opened in Myanmar for the third and final round of voting controversial general electionswith a military-backed party on track for a landslide victory amid a raging civil war.
Voting began in 60 townships, including the cities of Yangon and Mandalay, on Sunday at 6 a.m. local time (11:30 p.m. GMT, Saturday).
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Critics say the elections are neither free nor fair and aimed to legitimize military rule in Myanmar, nearly five years after the country’s generals toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, leading to a civil war that has killed thousands and displaced more than 3.5 million.
Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention and, like several other opposition groups, her National League for Democracy (NLD) has been disbanded, tipping the political balance in favor of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). leading in the polls.
So far, the USDP has secured 193 of 209 seats in the lower house and 52 of 78 seats in the upper house, according to the electoral commission.
This means that together with the army, which has 166 seats, the two already have just under 400 seats, far exceeding the 294 needed to come to power.
Seventeen other parties won a small number of seats in the legislature, ranging from one to ten, according to the electoral commission.
Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who heads the current military government, is widely expected by his supporters and opponents to assume the presidency when the new parliament convenes.
The military announced that Parliament would meet in March and the new government would take office in April.
While the military has promised the elections would return power to the people, rights monitors said the election campaign was marked by coercion and the crushing of dissent, warning the vote would only strengthen the military’s grip on power.
A new election protection law has imposed tough penalties on most public criticism of the election, with authorities recently charging more than 400 people for activities such as leafleting or online activity.
Ahead of the third round of voting, Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, also called for the result to be rejected, calling it “fraudulent”.
“Only an illegitimate government can emerge from an illegitimate election,” he wrote on X on Saturday.
“As Myanmar’s elections draw to a close, the world must reject them as fraudulent, while rejecting what follows as mere plainclothes military rule. »
Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan told parliament on Tuesday that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, had not sent observers and would not certify the elections, citing concerns over a lack of inclusive and free participation.
His comments are the first clear statement that the 11-member regional bloc will not recognize the election results.
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city, Zaw Ko Ko Myint, a 53-year-old teacher, voted at a high school around dawn.
“Even though I don’t expect much, we want to see a better country,” he told the AFP news agency. “I feel relieved after voting, as if I had fulfilled my duty.”
The previous two phases of the election were marked by low turnout of around 55 percent, well below the turnout of around 70 percent recorded in Myanmar’s 2020 and 2015 general elections.
Official results are expected at the end of the week, but the USDP could claim victory as early as Monday.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD defeated the USDP in the last elections in 2020, before the military took power on February 1, 2021.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors human rights violations in the country, at least 7,705 people have been killed since the start of the civil war, while 22,745 remain detained.
But the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a monitoring group that tracks media reports of violence, estimates that more than 90,000 people have been killed on all sides of the conflict.
