End of round two: A member of Myanmar’s Union Election Commission announcing the closing of polls at a polling station in Yangon. — AFP
The main pro-military party claimed victory in the parliamentary seat of sidelined democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi in elections being derided as a ploy to prolong junta rule.
The armed forces have ruled Myanmar for most of the nation’s post-independence history before a decade-long democratic thaw saw civilians assume control.
But the military snatched back power with a 2021 coup, deposing and detaining Suu Kyi after claiming she scored a landslide election win by means of massive voter fraud.
The junta says the current month-long vote – which has its final phase scheduled for Jan 25 – will return power to the people.
With Suu Kyi still held in seclusion and her hugely popular party dissolved, democracy advocates say the vote has been rigged by a crackdown on dissent and a ballot stacked with military allies.
An official from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), speaking anonymously because they were unauthorised to share results, said they “won in Kawhmu” – Suu Kyi’s former seat in Yangon region.
“We won 15 lower house seats out of 16 places in Yangon region,” they added, after Kawhmu and dozens of other constituencies voted in the election’s second stage on Sunday.
The official did not say by what margin the party claimed its win and official results of the second round have yet to be posted by the junta-stacked election commission.
But the USDP – described by many analysts as the military’s prime proxy – won nearly 90% of lower house seats in the first phase, official results say.
“It should surprise no one that the military-backed party has claimed a landslide victory,” UN rights expert Tom Andrews said in a statement last week.
“The junta engineered the polls to ensure victory for its proxy, entrench military domination, and manufacture a facade of legitimacy while violence and repression continue unabated.”
Regardless of the vote, a quarter of parliamentary seats will be reserved for the armed forces under a constitution drafted during a previous period of military rule.
The coup plunged Myanmar into civil war and voting is not taking place in huge territories controlled by rebel factions running parallel administrations in defiance of military rule.
There is no official toll for Myanmar’s civil war but monitoring group ACLED, which tallies media reports of violence, estimates that 90,000 people have been killed on all sides.
The day of the election’s first phase, Dec 28, saw 52 incidents – more than any other day for eight months – with a total of 68 people killed, according to its figures.
Meanwhile more than 330 people are being pursued under new junta-enacted laws, including clauses that punish protest or criticism of the poll with up to 10 years in prison.
There are more than 22,000 political prisoners languishing alongside Suu Kyi in junta detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group. — AFP
