Myanmar’s ‘Sham’ Election: Voting Under the Shadow of Civil War
Soldiers outnumbered voters as Myanmar’s junta staged an election barred to Aung San Suu Kyi and boycotted by most parties.
The Ballots That Weren’t
On the morning the polls opened, the streets of Yangon felt like a city rehearsing for a play that had already been cancelled. Soldiers with rifles outnumbered voters; polling stations—set up inside Buddhist monasteries and school cafeterias—echoed with silence instead of chatter.
A Country Still at War With Itself
Seventeen months after seizing power, the junta called an election it promised would "return democracy to the people." Instead, ballots arrived in townships where anti-coup militias had burned down the previous week’s police outposts. In Kayah State, election officers refused to leave the capital, citing "security concerns"—a euphemism for active firefights along every major road.
"We are being asked to vote while our villages are being bombed. This is not an election; it is a propaganda parade," said Htwi Paing, a 32-year-old teacher who joined the civil disobedience movement the day after the 2021 coup.
Ballot Boxes Without Choices
Parties aligned with the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) fielded 90 % of the candidates. The National League for Democracy—winner of the annulled 2020 vote—was dissolved by court order in March. Its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, remains in solitary confinement, hit with a 33-year sentence the UN calls "politically motivated."
- Only 27 % of eligible parties were allowed to register.
- Seventeen ethnic parties boycotted, calling the poll "a trap."
- State media claimed a 70 % turnout; independent observers put it closer to 15 % in urban centers.
The World Watches, and Shrugs
Washington labelled the exercise a "sham"; Brussels expanded sanctions on the state-owned gem company that bankrolled the polls. Yet ASEAN, fearful of driving the generals deeper into Beijing’s orbit, stopped short of barring the junta’s envoys from its summits. China and Russia sent low-level observers, enough to gift the regime the word "legitimate" in its nightly newscasts.
What Happens Next
The constitution drafted by the military in 2008 allows the generals to keep 25 % of parliamentary seats regardless of results. Analysts predict the junta will use the new "civilian" government to push through investment laws that open Myanmar’s jade and gas fields to foreign bidders—already courted in closed-door meetings in Singapore last month.
Meanwhile, resistance groups vow to keep fighting. "They can print ballot papers," said Ko Jimmy, a former student leader turned guerrilla, "but they can’t print legitimacy."