Myanmar’s military junta holds elections as civil war sparked by coup still rages

By Ross Adkin, Ivan Watson, Dan Hodge, CNN

Yangon, Myanmar (CNN) — Polls opened in Myanmar on Sunday kick-starting a controversial election the military junta says will return democratic rule, nearly five years after it seized power from an elected government, unleashing a brutal civil war it has yet to win.

The country’s most popular politician Aung San Suu Kyi is languishing in prison and its most successful political party has been dissolved. The ballot is dominated by parties perceived to be close to the military and hundreds have been arrested under a new law criminalizing obstruction, disruption and criticism of the poll.

And there are whole swaths of the country where voting will not take place, as the junta continues to battle a patchwork of ethnic rebels and pro-democracy fighters in the hilly borderlands and arid central plains.

A year ago, those groups inflicted a series of defeats on the military – with many opponents briefly dreaming the generals might be toppled, ending their decades-long dominance of the country’s politics and economy.

But this year junta troops – reinforced by tens of thousands of men drafted under a new conscription law and backed by new Chinese weaponry – have clawed back territory.

That, analysts say, has provided an opening for the junta to hold the vote, with generals hoping a new parliament, in which a quarter of seats will be reserved for the military, will convince some in the international community to re-engage with Myanmar after years in a post-coup wilderness.

In Myanmar’s commercial hub Yangon, national flags lined the main highway into town and electronic billboards broadcast state media coverage of the vote, set to be held in three stages into January, with the first day of voting on Sunday.

The junta’s leadership has made clear which way it thinks citizens should vote.

Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the 2021 coup, called on voters to select candidates “who can cooperate sincerely with the Tatmadaw,” state-run media reported, using the Burmese word for the military.

A new democracy or a sham?

The atmosphere has been markedly more muted than previous elections in the last decade, during Myanmar’s experiment with a more open democracy. Absent from the billboards and the state media coverage is Suu Kyi, for decades the figurehead of Myanmar’s struggle for democracy.

Detained since the coup, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who turned 80 this year, is currently serving a 27-year jail sentence after being convicted in a junta court on a litany of charges that critics say were designed to remove her from politics.

The brand of non-violent resistance that once made Suu Kyi’s name has been all but forgotten since the coup as civil war rages.

Meanwhile, the military has been relentless in its attacks on opponents.

UN investigators and rights groups have gathered evidence of systemic human rights abuses by the military against both combatants and civilians since the coup.

The military has been documented going on bloody rampages, torching and bombing villages, massacring residents, jailing opponents and forcing young men and women to join the army.

Myanmar’s junta has repeatedly denied committing atrocities and says it is targeting “terrorists.”

It argues the election objectives are a “genuine, disciplined multiparty democratic system and the building of a union based on democracy and federalism.”

And it has brushed off international criticism of the polls.

“The election is being conducted for the people of Myanmar, not for the international community,” junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said on December 14, Reuters reported.

“Whether the international community is satisfied or not, is irrelevant.”

The coup that sparked a civil war

The military seized power in February 2021, alleging massive fraud in elections won by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). International observers at the time said the poll was largely free and fair.

A brutal crackdown on peaceful protests sent thousands of mostly young people into territory held by ethnic rebel groups in the jungles and hills of Myanmar’s borderlands.

There they formed “People’s Defense Forces” dedicated to overthrowing the coup.

Armed with limited and at times homemade weaponry, they initially surprised their opponents with their effectiveness, dragging the military into a bloody stalemate.

Nearly five years of conflict have since ravaged Myanmar, wedged between China and India, decimating what was for a time one of the region’s fastest-growing economies.

More than 3 million people have been forced to flee their homes, according to the UN. Tens of thousands of young men have fled abroad or to rebel-held areas to avoid conscription into the military.

Crime and vice have thrived in the chaos. Myanmar is now the world’s biggest producer of methamphetamine and illicit opium, according to the United Nations.

And, in territory controlled by the myriad armed groups, newer criminal enterprises have flourished: scam compounds, where thousands of trafficked workers defraud people worldwide out of billions.

A huge earthquake in March amplified the misery of many, causing widespread disruption and deepening an already grim aid crisis.

China and Russia backers

The United States and most Western countries have never recognized the junta as the legitimate government of Myanmar, and the election has been denounced by several governments in the region – including Japan and Malaysia.

Russia and China have long been two of Myanmar’s biggest backers and have both spoken favorably of the elections. Thailand and India have pushed for more engagement with Myanmar’s generals to end the crisis on their borders.

China has leveraged its economic might to pressure rebel groups that hold territory along its border, closing the land crossings through which trade and people flow.

Meanwhile Beijing’s envoys have brokered the return of territory captured by rebel groups to junta control, including the gemstone and ruby mining hub of Mogok.

Voting will be held in three phases, with the second on January 11 and the third on January 25. It is not clear when a result will be announced.

In the run-up to the vote, United Nations rights monitors said Myanmar had witnessed intensified violence, repression and intimidation with civilians being threatened by both the military authorities and armed groups opposing them.

“There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly that allow for the free and meaningful participation of the people,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk said.

The composition of any new administration “will be interesting for observers up to a point,” independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson told CNN. “But the military is incapable of anything but cosmetic change that will not threaten their core interests of central control.”

Many Myanmar citizens say they see little point in voting.

“As a civilian in the conflict area, I don’t see a point in having this election,” Maw, a 25-year-old teacher who asked not to use her full name, said from a displaced persons camp in Kayah state, one of the hotbeds of resistance to military rule.

“This election will be unfair – ultimately a sham election.”

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