Ballots Amidst Bullets: Inside Myanmar’s Wartime Election

The Polls Open to the Sound of Artillery

NAYPYITAW—At dawn on election day, soldiers outnumbered voters outside Basic Education High-School 34. A cardboard ballot box, taped with the peacock seal of the State Administration Council, stood beneath a tattered awning while the thud of distant shelling echoed from the Bago Yoma hills. By 8 a.m. only eleven names—mostly teachers ordered to appear—had been ticked off the roll. The rest of the street was silent.

“We Vote Because We Are Watched”

“My students asked if I would boycott,” said Myat Thu*, a 42-year-old physics teacher, slipping her ink-stained finger into her sleeve. “I told them silence is safer than protest today.”

Her caution reflects the calculus millions of Burmese now face: participate and legitimize the junta that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, or stay home and risk interrogation by ward administrators who have spent weeks door-knocking with census lists.

Ballot-Box Math in a Broken Republic

The military’s Union Election Commission claims 35 million eligible voters. Yet in Yangon’s Tamwe township, polling stations that once served 3,000 residents were merged into a single site guarded by thirty rifle-carrying police. Similar compression—often justified by “security concerns”—has slashed nationwide voting venues from 5,600 in 2020 to roughly 2,100, according to independent watchdogs.

• Turnout estimates from local observers: 8–12 % in urban centers; under 5 % in embattled Sagaing.
• More than 40 parties were dissolved last year for failing to re-register under a stricter military-drafted law.
• The military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party is contesting every seat largely unopposed.

Rebels Frame the Vote as ‘Battlefield Propaganda’

Parallel to the ballot, the National Unity Government—an underground administration aligned with ousted lawmakers—has rebranded election day as “Resistance Tuesday,” urging citizens to bang pots at noon and donate the equivalent of a ballot stamp to rebel militias. In the southern jungles of Kayah, Karenni fighters released a video Tuesday morning showing captured armored cars daubed with the words “Your vote won’t count here.”

International Headlines, Local Headaches

Western governments dismissed the poll beforehand. The U.S. State Department labeled it a “sham exercise,” while ASEAN’s current chair Indonesia voiced “deep concern” that balloting would inflame violence. Yet geopolitics on the ground is messier: Thai and Chinese observers attended as “guests,” and Thai border towns report brisk trade in identity cards issued to migrant workers pressured to cross back and swell numbers.

Counting Votes, Counting Casualties

By nightfall, sporadic clashes flared in at least seven regions. In Depayin, Sagaing, anti-junta militias overran a police station hours after ballots closed; state media reported “six terrorists neutralized.” Meanwhile, inside Naypyidaw’s fortified election commission bunker, officials began tabulating results under portraits of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing. Early projections leaked to state television suggest a sweeping USDP victory—news that surprised no one still watching.

What Happens Next

The constitution scripted by the generals in 2008 requires a newly elected parliament to convene within 14 days. Analysts expect the session to be brief: swear in lawmakers, elect military-chosen speakers, then formalize Min Aung Hlaing’s transition from coup leader to constitutionally anointed president. Street resistance leaders vow to escalate ambushes on convoys transporting ballot materials, convinced that torching result sheets undermines the junta’s veneer of legitimacy faster than any diplomatic embargo.

Back at High-School 34, Myat Thu locked the gate at sunset. The ballot box, now sealed, was loaded into an army truck. “We closed the polling station,” she said quietly. “But the war outside is still open.”

*Name changed to protect identity.