As our immediate neighbour Myanmar (also known as Burma and Brahmadesh) plans for a nationwide election in the next few months, the anti-junta and pro-democracy groups have come out with strong voices that the ‘military junta has no legal or political legitimacy to hold an election’ and it does not have the effective territorial or administrative control over southeast Asian Buddhist majority nation to conduct an inclusive poll.
Progressive Voice, a participatory, rights-based policy research and advocacy organization, asserted that ‘with relentless junta attacks causing widespread instability and mass displacement, its planned election would be neither free & fair nor credible.’
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Reacting to the proposed election by Myanmar military rulers, a UN official also termed it a mirage (of establishing a legitimate civilian government).
Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, also added that the country cannot have an election in a real sense when the military dictators continue imprisoning and even torturing & executing opponents.
He also asserted that the world community needs to do more to support the people of Myanmar by denying the junta’s so-called election.
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Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing on a number of occasions stated that the next general election will be conducted by the end of this year or early days of 2026.
Without mentioning a date for the polls, the acting President of Myanmar said, “We are currently making the necessary preparations to hold the elections as widely and extensively as possible,” adding that ‘the elections must be free and fair’.
He also justified the 2021 military coup to save the country from any misdirection to be orchestrated by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) government after winning the polls in ‘fraudulent ways’.
In a recent announcement, published by the state-sponsored newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar, the election authority reaffirmed its plan to hold the election soon. Union Election Commission (UEC) also disclosed that any individual or group may apply for permission to form a political party in Myanmar.
UEC chairman U Ko Ko also added that the commission will use electronic voting machines in the nationwide polls to get a quick, accurate, and transparent outcome.
The current batch of dictators, who grabbed power in Naypyitaw on 01 February 2021 after toppling the democratically elected government of Suu Kyi, continue declaring that they would go to the polls and hand over the power to nearly 55 million Burmese nationals.
It is, however, assumed that the octogenarian pro-democracy icon, who has been behind bars for years, and her party, NLD, will be excluded from participation in the forthcoming election. By now, the military rulers have extended the state of emergency many times.
Since the latest military coup, over 6,500 Myanmar locals have been killed by the security forces, and more than 3.5 million individuals were displaced, many of whom left for neighbouring countries like Thailand, Bangladesh, and India.
No less than 22,000 people were detained by the armed forces, where the ousted Myanmar President Win Myint and over 25 journalists are still inside different jails without trials.
Realizing the ground situation, a United Nations official recently made a serious comment on the Myanmar rulers that there cannot be an election when they imprison and torture, and execute opponents.
More precisely, the Min Aung Hlaing-led junta today fully controls only half of the townships in Myanmar.
According to the National Unity Government (NUG), around 144 out of 330 Myanmar townships are currently under the control of ethnic armed organizations and other people-led resistance forces.
Over 75 townships continue to face armed challenges from the people with guns in other hands. Technically over 75% of Myanmar territory is now controlled by the civilian administrations after being snatched away from the military government by anti-junta armed forces.
In western Myanmar, Rakhine State (Arakan) province has virtually gone out of the military, where they effectively control only three townships (namely Rakhine capital Sittwe, Manaung, and parts of Kyaukphyu) out of 17.
Fighters belonging to the Arakan Army had captured all those townships with their offensive against the Tatmadaw.
Progressive Voice, while terming the junta-planned polls as a sham election, asserted that amid escalating attacks on civilians, the junta has continued its relentless efforts to whitewash its atrocities through the promise of the election, which is nothing but a façade.
“The junta’s recent arbitrary dissolution of 40 political parties (including the NLD, which overwhelmingly won in 2015 and 2020 elections) makes its real intention crystal clear. In addition, the illegitimate election authority said that voting would take place in 267 townships, a figure based on the junta’s illegal reconfiguration of the 330 officially recognized townships to artificially increase the number of townships under its control and create a false impression of broad electoral coverage,” said a statement of Progressive Voice adding that the planned election is its ‘strategy to seek and entrench false legitimacy so it can reinforce its tyranny’.
Speaking to this writer from Yangon (formerly Rangoon), Khin Ohmar, chairperson of Progressive Voice stated that the international support for the junta’s sham election (whether direct or indirect) poses an imminent threat to Myanmar people’s fight for freedom and democracy by entrenching military tyranny and reinforcing the very structure of violence.
The international community must unequivocally denounce the junta’s planned election and support the Myanmar people’s efforts to build federal democracy from the ground up, said the Burmese democracy activist adding that any international support of the junta’s sham election plan—whether through direct engagement or in ways that lend false legitimacy—only serves to embolden its brutality and continue the vicious cycle of military violence.