Myanmar’s military generals are preparing to stage an election that almost no one inside the country believes is real.
Five years after overturning the results of the 2020 vote—an election widely regarded as free and fair—the military is now trying to resurrect the performance of “polling” as a way out of the political crisis it created. It is a bid to develop an exit strategy, a controlled transition, or at least a new narrative for a country that has been battered by war, economic collapse, and mass displacement. But even the junta’s own numbers betray the impossibility of the project.
The junta’s electoral theater begins on December 28, 2025, with two more phases trailing into January. Yet even before the first ballots are cast, the military concedes it cannot hold polls in 161 wards and 2,770 villages—an extraordinary admission that undercuts its own claims of nationwide control.
Beyond the heavily fortified zones of Naypyitaw, the capital, and parts of Yangon, large portions of the country are far from being under its control. Sagaing, Magway, and Mandalay—regions transformed into symbols of armed and civilian resistance—remain largely inaccessible to the junta. In Rakhine State, the Arakan Army (AA), a powerful ethnic armed group, now controls 14 out of 17 townships, leaving the junta unable to guarantee even a symbolic vote in areas it still claims to hold.
Yet the generals persist in their effort to present the world with a show of electoral normalcy.
To understand how Myanmar arrived at this moment, one must return to the foundational illegitimacy of the 2021 coup. The military insists it acted within the 2008 Constitution, but this claim disintegrates under even basic scrutiny. President U Win Myint—the only individual empowered to declare a state of emergency—was in good health at the time, and explicitly refused to resign despite pressure from the military. Without his resignation, there was no constitutional vacancy to elevate Vice President Myint Swe.
Even if one accepts the junta’s strained reading of Section 73(a), they disregarded Section 73(b), which requires notifying the Speaker of Parliament so the constitutional process for selecting a new president can begin. But the generals never issued such a notice because they knew the elected legislature would not legitimise the coup. From the very first hours of February 1, 2021, the country’s top brass stepped outside the law, and every subsequent action has rested on that same broken foundation.
As months passed, the junta drifted further from constitutional ground.
The state of emergency they invoked was extended repeatedly without consulting the legislature, as required. By January 2023, having reached the outer limits of their legal contortions, the generals invented a new justification. The country, they claimed, had entered an “extraordinary situation.” But the Constitution does not define such a circumstance, nor does it grant the military the authority to interpret it.
That responsibility lies with the Constitutional Tribunal, yet the junta claimed it approved the extension the same day—without notice, hearings, or a proper vetting body. They simply declared themselves lawful and moved on.
The presidency was manipulated just as brazenly: as Acting President Myint Swe’s health declined in 2023, the generals pulled the long-absent Vice President Henry Van Thio back into view to maintain a façade of order, then abruptly “retired” him under an emergency clause that doesn’t even apply to elected officials.
When Myint Swe became too ill to function, the generals bypassed the constitutional line of succession and simply handed presidential powers to Min Aung Hlaing. He then kept his role as Commander-in-Chief despite clear prohibitions against holding both offices. For many in Myanmar, this was the moment the junta stopped even pretending to follow the law.
As one tea-shop joke goes, “Min Aung Hlaing treated the presidency like a neighborhood deed he could sign over to himself.” And with every constitutional pathway broken or ignored, the military now hopes that a new “election” will reset the narrative.
This strategy echoes that of former dictator Than Shwe, who oversaw a tightly controlled transition to a civilian façade in 2010. Yet Than Shwe spent years constructing the legal scaffolding for his transition: the seven-step roadmap, the 2008 Constitution, and a choreographed referendum.
Min Aung Hlaing is attempting to stage the same performance.
The electoral field has been cleared of serious challengers. Major parties such as the National League for Democracy, led by the imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi, and the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, have been dissolved. And even smaller political parties have been disbanded or legally crippled by the junta.
The only parties competing nationwide are the Union Solidarity and Development Party, the National Unity Party, the People’s Pioneer Party, the Myanmar Farmers Development Party, the Shan and Ethnic Democratic Party (the White Tiger Party), and the People’s Party. The USDP—a military proxy led by retired senior officers—dominates this narrow field, and the remaining parties are closely aligned with the junta or USDP interests.
To cement control, the junta has introduced laws that criminalise not only criticism but even humor. People have been arrested for emoji reactions on Facebook. And one widely shared incident involved a man in central Myanmar who was detained after laughing when a USDP signboard was blown over by the wind. At least 88 people—including well-known filmmakers—have been prosecuted under the new “election disruption” law, but observers believe the real number is far higher.
Under the Constitution, only the Union Election Commission (UEC) can adjudicate election disputes, and its decisions are final. Before the coup, the UEC had already certified the 2020 vote as credible. International observers agreed. The military had no authority to claim fraud, no power to annul results, and no legal standing to take over the electoral system. Yet on July 26, 2021, the junta-installed UEC declared the election void—an act that would be laughable if its consequences were not so destructive.
Five years later, Myanmar is living with the fallout: a collapsing economy, expanding conflict, widespread hunger, and a military that has bombed, burned, and terrorised civilians while insisting it is preparing the country for democracy.
Since the 2021 coup, Myanmar has regressed into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises: more than 7,000 civilians have been killed, over 3 million people displaced, and tens of thousands arbitrarily arrested and tortured in military custody.
The truth is no election conducted under airstrikes, martial law, and mass displacement can be considered legitimate. Yet the generals insist, clinging to the belief that even a hollow vote might buy them time or international indulgence.
There is an old proverb in Myanmar that captures the futility of this moment: “Collecting frogs with a broken basket.” The military may gather ballots, tally votes, and proclaim victory, but without public trust or constitutional legitimacy, none of these actions are meaningful. The basket—the political and legal order—was shattered by the generals long ago.
