Myanmar junta extends census as fighting, floods slow election preparations

Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

Myanmar’s military regime has been forced to extend its two-week census, an official told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday, after fighting and threats of retaliation against junta administrators, along with flooding in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, made it impossible to gather information in many parts of the country.

The census, aimed at tallying potential voters ahead of the widely-criticized 2025 elections, has met strong opposition from the country’s ethnic armed groups who say preparations for a nationwide vote are impossible while they battle a regime that continues to arrest and kill its critics. 

Since the country’s coup over three years ago, the junta has been under pressure from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to hold elections. But the regime has continued to extend a state of emergency across the country and brought in tough new registration laws that disqualify many parties from standing, including the National League for Democracy, deposed after winning a landslide victory in the 2020 election.

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After the official census period ended on Tuesday, the junta’s ministry of immigration and population said more time was needed to reach households in areas of armed conflict and regions whose roads had been cut off by recent storms and flooding.

“Although we conducted the census from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15, there are still regions that are left out,” Vice Minister of Immigration and Population Htay Hlaing told RFA. “We’ll continue there, but I can’t say how long it will last.”

The junta plans to add 40,000 more enumerators to the nearly 110,000 already working to collect census data, his ministry said, adding that there are an estimated 13 million households in the country, with a population of over 56 million. Htay Hlaing declined to comment on how many people had filled out the census over the past two weeks.

On Wednesday, state-owned media encouraged those in “relevant areas” who remained uncounted to contact the Central Census Commission, adding that they would publish preliminary results in December. 

Powerful ethnic armies continue to seize territory from junta forces in Rakhine state in Myanmar’s west, border regions like Kachin, Kayin and Kayah states, and central Mandalay region, casting doubt on how junta forces could do an accurate count there.

Census takers and the troops and police guarding them have come under attack from rebel forces in Chin state and Sagaing, Yangon and Tanintharyi regions since early October. 

Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Tuesday called on Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups to cooperate with the election plans, warning: “Only when the country forges peace and stability will the government initiate the strengthening of the multiparty democratic system and correct reform processes as quickly as possible.”

But former election monitor San Aung, who has been observing the latest preparations, told RFA the junta will not be able to complete the census in areas controlled by armies opposed to Min Aung Hlaing’s regime

“There are so many forces defending areas that they won’t allow a census to be done in. Even in Yangon, it’s not easy to count,” he said, referring to Myanmar’s largest city, where guerilla groups bombed administrative offices days before the census began.

“There are also very few enumerators. Getting the data in phases will probably also be difficult. They’re definitely endangering their security and their lives.”

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn.