Conflict-ravaged Burma Votes in Widely Criticised 'Sham' Election.

Myanmar is going to the polls in a vote widely dismissed as a farce, with key opposition groups dissolved, many of their leaders imprisoned and a significant portion of the country unlikely to vote because of an continuing internal conflict.

A Staggered Vote Amid Conflict

The military government is holding a phased ballot nearly five years after it seized power in a coup, which ignited massive protests and spiralled into a civil war.

Observers say the junta, with China's support, is attempting to validate and entrench its power as it seeks a way out of the devastating deadlock.

"There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, assembly or peaceful assembly," the United Nations' top human rights official Volker Türk stated.

More than 200 people have been prosecuted for disrupting or opposing the election under a recently enacted legislation which imposes harsh penalties, including the possibility of execution.

Film director Mike Tee, performer Kyaw Win Htut and entertainer Ohn Daing were among the prominent figures convicted under the law, which was passed in July. They were each handed a seven-year jail term after speaking out against a film promoting the elections.

Immense Challenges and Pressure

Civilians are "facing pressure from all sides," Mr Türk said in a statement, pointing out that armed rebel groups have made warnings asking people to shun the polls.

The army has been engaged on multiple battlefields, against both armed resistance groups who oppose the coup, as well as ethnic armies which have their own forces. It lost control of vast areas of the country in a series of major setbacks, but regained territory this year after sustained aerial bombardment enabled by support from China and Russia.

All of this and the fact that significant regions of the country are still under opposition control presents a massive operational hurdle for conducting an election.

A Restricted Poll

The ballot is set to take place in three phases over the next month in two hundred and seventy-four of the country's 330 townships, with the remainder deemed not secure enough. Outcomes are expected by late January.

There is unlikely to be any voting in up to fifty percent of the country. Even in the townships that are voting, some districts will go to the polls, making it difficult to predict a likely turnout.

Six parties, including the junta-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party, are running nominees nationwide, while another 51 parties and non-aligned contenders will contest only at the local levels.

Approximately forty groups, including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy, which scored landslide victories in 2015 and 2020, have been dissolved. Suu Kyi and a number of the party's key leaders have been imprisoned under charges widely condemned as politically motivated, while the rest are in exile.

Criticism and Rejection

"By splitting the vote into stages, the authorities can change their approach if the results in the initial round do not go their way," commented Htin Kyaw Aye, a spokesman of the election-monitoring group Spring Sprouts.

Nations in the West, including the UK and the European Parliament, have rejected the vote as a pretence, while neighbouring group Asean has urged negotiations to precede any election.

The Myanmar regime has dismissed criticism of the polls, insisting that it aims to "return [the country] to a multi-party democratic system".

"The election is being held for Myanmar. It is being held for the people of Myanmar. It is not being held for the international community," a military representative told a news conference last week.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing cautioned earlier this week that those who refuse to vote are rejecting "progress toward democracy".