NAYPYITAW--Under the shadow of civil war and questions over the poll's credibility, the initial round of Myanmar's phased general election closed on Sunday, with signs of low voter turnout for the first polls since a military coup in 2021.
The junta, having crushed pro-democracy protests after the coup and sparked a nationwide rebellion, said the vote would bring political stability to the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, despite international condemnation of the exercise.
The United Nations, some Western countries and human rights groups have said the vote is not free, fair or credible, given that anti-junta political parties are out of the running and it is illegal to criticise the polls. Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, deposed by the military months after her National League for Democracy won a general election landslide in 2020, remains in detention and the party she led to power has been dissolved.
The military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party, led by retired generals and fielding one-fifth of all candidates against severely diminished competition, is set to return to power, said Lalita Hanwong, a lecturer and Myanmar expert at Thailand's Kasetsart University. "The junta's election is designed to prolong the military's power of slavery over people," she said. "And USDP and other allied parties with the military will join forces to form the next government."
In the lacklustre canvassing ahead of the polls, the USDP was the most visible. Founded in 2010, the year it won an election boycotted by the opposition, the party ran the country in concert with its military backers until 2015, when it was swept away by Suu Kyi's NLD.
Voter turnout in Sunday's polls appeared much lower than in the 2020 election, 10 residents of cities spread across Myanmar said.Further rounds of voting will be held on January 11 and January 25, covering 265 of Myanmar's 330 townships, although the junta does not have complete control of all those areas.
Armed groups formed in the wake of the coup and long-established ethnic armies are fighting the military across swathes of the country, displacing some 3.6 million people and creating one of Asia's worst humanitarian crises.
A date for the final election result has not been declared.Dressed in civilian clothes, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing voted in the heavily guarded capital city of Naypyitaw, then held up an ink-soaked little finger, smiling widely, footage on state media MRTV showed. Voters must dip a finger into indelible ink after casting a ballot to ensure they do not vote more than once.
Asked by reporters if he would like to become the country's president, an office that analysts say he has ambitions for, the general said he was not the leader of any political party. "When the parliament convenes, there is a process for electing the president," he said.
The junta's attempt to establish a stable administration in the midst of war is fraught with risk, and broad foreign recognition is unlikely for any military-controlled government with a civilian veneer, according to analysts. Tom Andrews, the U.N. special envoy for human rights in Myanmar, said on Sunday the election was not a pathway out of the country's crisis and must be strongly rejected.
Zaw Min Tun, a junta spokesperson, acknowledged international criticism of the vote."However, from this election, there will be political stability," he told reporters after voting in Naypyitaw. "We believe there will be a better future."
