Polls have opened in Myanmar\u2019s first general election since the country\u2019s military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s democratically elected government in a 2021 coup.<\/p>\n
The heavily restricted election on Sunday is taking place in about 102 of the Southeast Asian nation\u2019s 330 townships, with a civil war raging between the military and an array of opposition forces and as ethnic armed groups.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Following the initial phase, two rounds of voting will be held on January 11 and January 25, while voting has been cancelled altogether in 65 townships.<\/p>\n In Myanmar\u2019s largest city, Yangon, polling stations opened at 6am on Sunday (23:30 GMT, Saturday), with only a trickle of voters turning up to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks like an election. We\u2019ve got all the necessary bits in place. There are registration boards out here. But we have not seen a rush of voters coming in yet,\u201d said Al Jazeera\u2019s Tony Cheng, reporting from Yangon.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question is, how many people are going to use the opportunity to vote. When you look at the ballot, there are only few choices. The vast majority of those choices are military parties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The election has been derided by critics \u2013 including the United Nations, some Western countries and human rights \u2060groups \u2013 as an exercise that is not free, fair or credible, with anti-military political parties not competing.<\/p>\n Aung San Suu Kyi, who was deposed by the military \u200bmonths after her National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last general election by a landslide in 2020, remains in detention, and her party has been dissolved.<\/p>\n The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is widely expected to emerge as the largest party, in what critics say would be a rebranding of martial rule.<\/p>\n The military, which has governed Myanmar since 2021, said the vote is a chance for a new start, politically and economically, for the nation of 55 million people, with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing consistently framing the polls as a path to reconciliation.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The polls \u201cwill turn a new page for Myanmar, shifting the narrative from a conflict-affected, crisis-laden country to a new chapter of hope for building peace and reconstructing \u200cthe economy\u201d, an opinion piece in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said on Saturday.<\/p>\n But with fighting still raging in many areas of the country, the elections are being held in an environment of violence and repression, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said last week.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly that allow for the free and meaningful participation of the people,\u201d said Turk, the high commissioner for human rights.<\/p>\n The civil war, which was triggered by the 2021 coup, has killed an estimated 90,000 people, displaced 3.5 million and left nearly half of Myanmar\u2019s 55 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.<\/p>\n According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 22,000 people are currently detained for political offences.<\/p>\n In downtown Yangon, stations were cordoned off overnight, with security staff posted outside, while armed officers guarded traffic intersections.<\/p>\n Among a trickle of early voters, 45-year-old Swe Maw dismissed international criticism.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not an important matter,\u201d he told the AFP news agency. \u201cThere are always people who like and dislike.\u201d<\/p>\n In total, only about 100 people voted at the two stations during their first hour of operation, according to an AFP tally.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is impossible for this election to be free and fair,\u201d said Moe Moe Myint, who has spent the past two months \u201con the run\u201d from military air strikes.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can we support a junta-run election when this military has destroyed our lives?\u201d she told AFP from a village in the central Mandalay region.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are homeless, hiding in jungles, and living between life and death,\u201d the 40-year-old said.<\/p>\n The second round of polling will take place in two weeks\u2019 time, before the third and final round on January 25. Dates for counting votes and announcing election results have not been declared.<\/p>\n Analysts say the military\u2019s attempt to establish a stable administration in the midst of an expansive conflict is fraught with risk, and that significant international recognition is unlikely for any military-controlled government \u2013 even if it has a civilian veneer.<\/p>\n Polls have opened in Myanmar\u2019s first general election since the country\u2019s military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s democratically elected government in a 2021 coup. The heavily restricted election on Sunday is taking place in about 102 of the Southeast Asian nation\u2019s 330 townships, with a civil war raging between the military and an array of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AFP__20251228__896379F__v1__MidRes__MyanmarVote-1766883845.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"