Myanmar to organize election in fewer than half of townships, parties say

Myanmar is expected to organize an election next year in fewer than half of its 330 townships in the first phase of a staggered vote, a political party official said on Tuesday, with an insurgency by anti-junta forces likely to prevent the polls from opening in large parts of the country.

The generals who seized power in 2021 are hoping that an election will legitimize their rule and please neighbors, including China. The junta’s opponents say a vote under the military, with the most popular politicians locked up and their parties banned, will be a sham.

More than 6,000 people have been killed in Myanmar’s war since the coup and some 21,000 have been jailed, U.N. experts said last week, calling on governments around the world to reject the junta’s election plan.

No date has been set for the vote but it is expected this year.

The chairman of the Election Commission, Ko Ko, met representatives of political parties in the capital, Naypyidaw, on the weekend to outline arrangements, said Myo Set Thway, general secretary of the People’s Pioneer Party.

“He’s saying elections will just be held in places that are already safe and trusted,” Myo Set Thway, who attended the meeting, told Us.

He cited the commission chairman as saying voting would be held in 161 of the 330 townships.

Myo Set Thway did not say which townships would vote first but large parts of the country, including some central areas, have been rocked by fighting over the past year. Insurgents controlled at least 86 towns as of November, said the Burma News International’s Myanmar Peace Monitor.

“He’ll hold the next elections in places that can be made secure, that was the connotation,” Myo Set Thway said, referring to the chairman.

A spokesperson for the Election Commission could not immediately be reached for comment.

China, with energy pipelines and other economic interests in Myanmar, supports the election and has been pressing ethnic minority insurgents to talk peace with the junta.

Votes for the displaced

In Myanmar’s last election in 2020, voting was held in 315 out of the 330 townships. The party led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi swept that vote, as it did in 2015.

The army complained of cheating in 2020 and overthrew Suu Kyi’s government on Feb. 1, 2021. She has been jailed for 27 years.

Authorities have effectively barred many parties from the vote, including Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, but 53 have registered, said Ko Ko.

Voting will likely take place in Mon state and the Thanintharyi region in the south, Yangon and the Mandalay and Ayeyarwaddy regions, where the military retains strongholds, analysts say.

A party leader from war-torn Rakhine state said people displaced by fighting had to be able to vote.

“The Election Commission must protect the rights of internally displaced people fleeing from the military and sheltering in areas outside their scope,” said Aye Maung, chairman of the Arakan Front party.

The U.N. says more than 3 million people have been displaced by the fighting and by flooding this year.

Neighbors will be hoping an election can help to bring stability to resource-rich Myanmar. Thailand, China and India have discussed support for a census now underway and the vote.

Edited by Kiana Duncan.