Myanmar junta attempts elections in Rakhine State despite loss of control

With the first phase of elections managed by the ruling military regime scheduled for this coming weekend, preparations are underway even in the western state of Rakhine, where the military has lost control of all but three townships to an anti-junta ethnic armed group. Of the state’s 17 townships, the military authorities have only managed to maintain control in three: Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung. Even in those three townships, the regime has given up on the possibility of holding the vote throughout the townships’ full territory. Of the 17 townships in Rakhine, elections will not be feasible in the 14 townships held by the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group opposed to the military regime that does not recognise its authority to hold elections. Of the three townships under the junta’s control, only the island township of Manaung , which lies off the Rakhine State coast in the Bay of Bengal, is going ahead with planned elections throughout its territory. According to public statements issued by the junta in the first week of December, there will be no polling in Kitsapa Ward and 17 village tracts of Sittwe Township, nor in a full 48 village tracts and five wards in Kyaukphyu Township. Ongoing battles are the main reason for excluding territories from the election in Sittwe and Kyaukphyu townships. Myo Kyaw, general secretary of the Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) party, called the planned polling “extremely ugly and degraded,” with no legitimate merit as an election or claim to represent the people. “Some so-called Rakhine politicians shamelessly say things like they can win with just one vote, and people can vote from afar. We, the Rakhine people, are extremely disgusted by this,” he said. Myo Kyaw also noted that dozens of parties, including a few that have been major competitors in previous elections, are barred from fielding candidates in Myanmar’s upcoming elections. He charges that the military means for only their own loyalists to compete. “Even some political parties that have been meeting with them at peace conferences and commission meetings for many years, spanning a decade, have been dissolved and forbidden to participate,” he said. In Rakhine State, the Arakan National Party (ANP), which won the most votes in the state in the 2015 and 2020 general elections, had its registration revoked last year. Military authorities changed the registration criteria in 2023 before requiring all parties in the country to re-register, in a move widely seen as calculated to obstruct participation by parties they wished to exclude. The ANP’s fate parallels what happened to the National League for Democracy, the party that won in the general elections of 2015 and 2020 before being ousted in the military coup of 2021. It was among the 40 parties that was disbanded for failing to meet the junta's new registration requirements. The candidates Among the politicians who will participate in Rakhine State’s circumscribed version of elections are two former legislators at the township and state levels: Dr. Aye Maung and former Ba Shein. Aye Maung and Ba Shein are the chairmen, respectively, of the Arakan Front Party (AFP) and Rakhine Nationalities Party (RNP), the two major parties competing in the state alongside the Myanmar military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which is competing throughout the country. They are also competing for state legislative seats on their parties’ tickets. Dr. Aye Maung attending a People’s Party event held in Yangon on August 23 this year (Photo: AFP) AFP chair Aye Maung is standing for a first-past-the-post, single-member constituency in Sittwe Township, campaigning on such issues as restoring “peace” and “stability” to the state and the return of people to their homes after they were displaced by fighting, as well as promising to further local development. “The Arakan Front Party must participate and work on the reconstruction and restoration of Rakhine with all its capabilities and wisdom, and has formulated practical short-term and long-term policies and processes,” Aye Maung said while campaigning on junta-controlled television. He previously served as chair of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) and won an assembly seat in 2010. He stood again but lost in 2015, after the party’s merger with the ALD to form the Arakan National Party. After winning another seat in Rakhine State’s Ann Township in a 2017 by-election, he broke from the ANP to form the Arakan Front Party. Later, he began associating with the popular Rakhine writer Wai Hin Aung, alongside whom he made public remarks in 2018 invoking the “sovereignty” of Rakhine State and its people—based on the independence of the old Arakan Kingdom from Burma—which led to his arrest and sentencing to 20 years in prison under Myanmar’s sedition laws. However, having remained popular among Rakhine people, Aye Maung was freed in a junta amnesty following the 2021 military coup in Myanmar. RNP chair Ba Shein, who is standing for a first-past-the-post, Kyaukphyu Township seat, has emphasised the promise of the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone—a major ongoing infrastructure development project funded by Chinese investment—to create job opportunities for local people. The RNP received authorisation to form on June 9 of this year. Formerly a leading member of the Arakan National Party who was elected to the Kyaukphyu Township People’s Assembly in 2010 and 2015, Ba Shein founded the party two months earlier, on April 7, 2025. The candidates have remained silent on the subject of the Mrauk-U hospital airstrike, in which junta bombs killed dozens of defenceless civilians in a part of the state controlled by the AA in the second week of December, or other violence against civilians by the junta, Myo Kyaw noted. “Why don’t they speak out?” he demanded. “When the time comes it will be even worse,” he said, referring to when the candidates take office. “They don't even make a pretence of speaking out. During this election period, all Rakhine people have become victims of the military.” Fading support from the people Among a contingent of largely unknown newcomers, Aye Maung and Ba Shein are among the only widely recognised politicians competing in Rakhine State’s upcoming elections. Aye Maung won popular support for the invocations of Rakhine autonomy that led to his imprisonment before the coup. While his name is still widely recognised, he has lost some of this support since his release under the junta amnesty, after which he began to appear at junta-organised peace talks and campaign rallies. His silence about the atrocities committed against Rakhine people by the military have drawn public criticism, as exemplified in recent remarks by Rakhine comedian Pho Hla Pyae. Dr. Aye Maung accompanied by Arakan Front Party members with campaign billboards at U Ottama Park near Lawkananda Pagoda in Sittwe on November 28 (Photo: Arakan Front Party) “Dear Dr. Aye Maung, when you were imprisoned for the first time, the whole of Rakhine State worried for you as if their father and mother were in prison,” the comedian said in an online broadcast. “They spoke out for you. On the day you were released, the people waited to welcome you with Buddha statues, padauk drum dances, thabyay fronds, mango and palm fronds. My mother was there too!” “You don’t say a single word now about our Rakhine people being killed en masse by jets in Rakhine State,” he continued. “You should present to the world why we Rakhine are being treated like this, being oppressed. You should expose it. Now I haven't seen you opening your mouth even once.” 57 parties will participate in the military-run elections throughout Myanmar, but only six parties plan to field candidates countrywide. The remaining 51 are competing only at the regional or state levels. Resistance groups and anti-junta armed groups throughout Myanmar have voiced their unequivocal opposition to the elections, marking the dates from October 28 to the end of this year as a period to strike against and boycott them. The AA, the ethnic armed group exercising authority in 14 of Rakhine State’s 17 townships, will not allow the junta to hold the vote in any of the areas it controls, according to AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha. “Elections should be based on the people’s consent. Elections without public support cannot benefit the people and will only cause more difficulties for them,” Khaing Thukha said at a press conference in August. “We will not allow elections in areas we control. Why? Because the successive Burmese government elections held in Rakhine State have not benefited the Rakhine people at all. It is certain that no Rakhine person is interested in this election,” he added. The military-run elections will proceed in three phases, each separated by around two weeks, with the first occurring this Sunday followed by two more rounds of voting in January. 140 cases have been prosecuted against 229 detainees for obstruction or interference with the elections, according to public statements by the military regime and reports in regime-run media. More arrests, charges, and imprisonments are likely over the coming weeks as the military carries out the three planned phases of voting.

Myanmar junta attempts elections in Rakhine State despite loss of control

Even in the three remaining townships where the military exercises authority, elections will not be feasible in some jurisdictions and the competing parties have scant popular support

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