What will this Sunday’s ‘elections’ mean for Myanmar?

With only days remaining before Myanmar’s military junta stages an election designed to extend its rule, the sounds echoing across towns and villages are not those of campaigning or civic debate, but the terrifying blasts of bombs and artillery. The poll, scheduled for this coming Sunday and organised by the regime itself, is widely seen not as a political solution to the country’s nearly five years of devastating conflict, but as a carefully scripted performance aimed at locking it into another chapter of military subjugation. The timing of the vote is telling. The end of December is a time when many foreign diplomats are away, and the junta has made it clear that they won’t be missed. When asked to respond to governments critical of this empty electoral exercise, junta spokesperson Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun dismissed their views as irrelevant. The poll was being held for the Myanmar public, not to placate international opinion, he said. The regime may deny it, but in truth it deeply craves international recognition. In practice, however, it regards territorial control on the ground as the only “legitimacy” that really matters. That is why it has poured enormous resources into recapturing towns and villages lost to anti-junta forces. Played out in a nation whose soil is already soaked in blood from the army’s post-coup violence, the planned vote is just a continuation of war by other means. Nearly five years into military rule, Myanmar’s population has endured arbitrary arrests and killings, forced conscription, the burning of homes, airstrikes on schools, hospitals and religious buildings, and deepening poverty. Now, the regime is adding to this multitude of grievous injuries with the insult of forcing civilians to cast ballots at gunpoint. There is little doubt that the junta’s objective is not the restoration of democracy, but the manufacture of a predetermined outcome that would legitimise its seizure of power through repression and violence. Mourners attend a funeral for victims of a junta airstrike on the main hospital in Mrauk-U, Rakhine State, on December 10 (Photo: AFP) Parties handpicked to serve the regime The junta has permitted only six political parties—including the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)—to contest nationwide. These parties are expected to prop up the regime after the vote and deliver a prearranged result. They include the USDP, the National Unity Party (NUP), the People’s Pioneer Party, the People’s Party, the Farmers Development Party, and the Shan and Ethnic Democratic Party. While the USDP is the military-backed party led by former senior army officers, the NUP is rooted in the old military dictatorship of former ruler Ne Win. The remaining parties function largely as proxies or maintain close ties to the armed forces in various ways. Thet Thet Khine, leader of the People’s Pioneer Party, served as a cabinet minister under the junta following the 2021 coup. Ko Ko Gyi, the leader of the People’s Party, has repeatedly denounced the armed resistance movement and has been outspoken in asserting a dominant role for the military in Myanmar’s politics. Only these six parties are allowed to contest constituencies for the Union parliament, which has the authority to form a government. The remaining 51 registered parties will compete only at the state or regional level. A leader of the military-backed USDP campaigns ahead of the December 28 election (Photo: EPA) The junta has announced that voting will be held in three phases, beginning on December 28, 2025, in 102 townships. A second phase will follow on January 11, 2026, in 100 townships, with a third phase to be held two weeks later. Htin Kyaw Aye of the election-monitoring group Spring Sprouts said the process does not deserve to be called an election at all. “This is nothing more than a rigged card game,” he said. “By splitting the vote into phases, the authorities can adjust tactics if the results in the first phase do not go their way. That in itself is another mechanism for manipulation.” He added that the regime has quietly redeployed retired military officers over the past months across the six nationwide parties to ensure its grip on power. “Even the old guard of the USDP, which is directly linked to the military, does not seem to be fully trusted by the junta,” he said. In September, Myanmar’s junta-controlled election commission announced that voting would not take place in 56 townships across eight states and regions, out of a total of 330 townships nationwide. Posters in Yangon exhort the public to participate in the election (Photo: EPA) No real rivals After overthrowing the results of the widely accepted 2020 elections, the military systematically dismantled the country’s major opposition parties ahead of its own poll. More than 40 opposition parties—including the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy—were dissolved in 2023 for failing to re-register. Even parties that attempted to comply, such as the Arakan National Party (ANP) and the Zomi Democratic Party, were rejected. The ANP, which won the largest share of votes in Rakhine State in 2020, said its rejection was deliberate. Its general secretary, Tha Tun Hla, told Myanmar Now that the party was subjected to repeated investigations before being disqualified. “If they truly intend to build a multiparty democracy, rejecting parties that meet the requirements raises serious questions about their claims,” he said. In the 2020 election, the NLD won 920 parliamentary seats nationwide, while the USDP secured just 71. The military justified its coup by alleging voter fraud—claims widely dismissed as baseless. With the NLD barred from the 2025 election, the contest is shaping up as a one-horse race dominated by military-aligned parties. Members of a party contesting the election campaign under junta supervision in Yangon (Photo: EPA) A voting system designed to confuse The junta has introduced a hybrid “mixed PR” electoral system that combines first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting with proportional representation (PR). Critics say the system is deliberately complex and designed to confuse voters rather than reflect their will. Under junta regulations, FPTP will apply to the lower house, while the upper house and regional legislatures will use a mixture of FPTP and PR. In regional parliaments, each township will elect two representatives—one through FPTP and one through PR. In the upper house, half the seats will be filled by each method. Entire states are also being treated as single PR constituencies, requiring voters to select six representatives, after which parties are awarded additional seats proportionally. “This system is so convoluted that voters gain none of the real benefits of proportional representation,” Htin Kyaw Aye said. “In practice, it advantages larger parties and allows the junta to fill seats from areas where voting cannot even take place due to conflict.” Testing of electronic voting machines to be used in the election (Photo: EPA) No political exit left Until just a week before his party was dissolved, Kyaw Htet, general secretary of the National Democratic Force (NDF)—a breakaway party from Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD—still believed political engagement through parliament was possible. He had planned to contest a seat in Yangon’s Dawbon Township. That hope collapsed on September 9, when the junta’s election commission announced the dissolution of four nationwide parties—including the NDF—on the grounds that they failed to meet membership and office requirements. This is despite the fact that his party’s leader, Khin Maung Swe, a former central executive committee member of NLD, was appointed as a cabinet advisor of the junta after the 2021 coup. Kyaw Htet said his party had submitted documentation showing more than 88,000 members and 117 offices, meeting the official threshold. The decision, he said, revealed the junta’s premeditated strategy. “They’ve taken away even the possibility of resolving the crisis through political means,” he said. “Those who believe there are other ways to resolve this will continue—but we’ve been shut out.” He said his party had deliberately avoided confrontation with the military, hoping to work within legal frameworks. “When the moment came to participate lawfully, we were denied that right. It was deeply disheartening,” he said. “Even parties on their side are pressured and discarded if they are not fully trusted. The only guaranteed beneficiary of this election is the military itself. It is designed solely for their victory.” He warned that the 2025 election could prove even more destructive than the deeply flawed 2010 poll held under former dictator Than Shwe. “The government that emerges will call itself civilian,” he said, “but it will intensify its crackdown on resistance forces. This election points toward an even bloodier future for Myanmar.”

What will this Sunday’s ‘elections’ mean for Myanmar?

The outcome of the vote is a foregone conclusion: a continuation of military rule in a different guise

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