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

Myanmar is going to the polls in a electoral process broadly rejected as a sham, with major political parties banned, many of their leaders imprisoned and a significant portion of the country unable to participate because of an ongoing civil war.

A Phased Ballot Amid Conflict

The military government is holding a staggered election nearly half a decade after it took control in a coup, which ignited massive protests and escalated into a civil war.

Observers say the junta, with backing from Beijing, is seeking to legitimise and consolidate its power as it seeks a way out of the costly deadlock.

"There are no conditions for the exercise of the freedoms of free speech, association or peaceful assembly," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said.

Over two hundred people have been prosecuted for disrupting or criticising the polls under a recently enacted legislation which carries severe punishments, including the death penalty.

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

Immense Challenges and Coercion

Civilians are "being coerced from all sides," Mr Türk said in a statement, adding that armed rebel groups have issued their own threats asking people to boycott the polls.

The military has been fighting on multiple battlefields, against both armed resistance groups who oppose the coup, as well as ethnic armies which have their own forces. It ceded territory of large parts of the country in a series of major setbacks, but regained territory this year after relentless airstrikes enabled by support from Beijing and Moscow.

All of this and the fact that large parts of the country are still under opposition control presents a massive logistical challenge for conducting an election.

A Limited Vote

Voting 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 rest deemed too unstable. Results are expected by late January.

There is not expected to be any voting in up to fifty percent of the country. Even in the townships that are voting, some districts will hold elections, making it challenging to predict a likely turnout.

Six parties, including the junta-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party, are running nominees nationwide, while dozens more parties and non-aligned contenders will compete only at the state or regional levels.

Some 40 parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy, which scored decisive wins in 2015 and 2020, have been dissolved. Suu Kyi and many of the party's senior figures have been jailed under charges widely condemned as fabricated, while the rest are in hiding abroad.

Criticism and Rejection

"By splitting the vote into phases, the junta can adjust tactics if the outcomes in the initial round do not go their way," commented Htin Kyaw Aye, a spokesman of the election-monitoring group Spring Sprouts.

Western governments, including the United Kingdom and the EU legislature, have rejected the vote as a sham, while neighbouring group Asean has called for negotiations to come before any election.

The Myanmar regime has rejected criticism of the polls, maintaining that it aims to "return [the country] to a democracy with multiple parties".

"The election is being held for Myanmar. It is being held for the citizens of this country. It is not being held for the outside world," a junta spokesman told a briefing last week.

Military leader Min Aung Hlaing cautioned earlier this week that those who refuse to vote are turning their back on "the path to democracy".