COMMENT: Myanmar’s 2025 vote - an election with the ending already written
Myanmar’s generals have finally produced the ballot box they have been promising since their 2021 coup. After five years of civil war, mass displacement of entire towns and villages and systematic repression across the country, the junta has staged the first part of what it calls a return to democratic rule.
However, as was reported by the Hindustan Times across the 1,640km border with India - the world’s largest democracy - what appears to be unfolding on election day, Sunday December 28, looks less like an election than a carefully managed performance; one designed to legitimise continued military control while excluding any genuine or effective political competition.
It is a play being staged without many of the actors though, as across junta-held parts of the country, polling stations opened to sparse crowds. In some locations, officials and journalists have reportedly outnumbered voters, reports say. This is a striking contrast to the long queues seen in the last nationwide election in 2020. That was a vote the military annulled before overthrowing the elected government and arresting its leaders the following year.
Under cover of COVID and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the generals have spent the intervening years insisting that a new election would restore stability. What is unfolding on the ground, however, bears little resemblance to that narrative.
The sham in action
As is, Myanmar, a nation of around 50mn, remains fractured by conflict, with large swathes of territory outside the military’s control. Voting is not taking place in rebel-held areas, in effect disenfranchising tens of millions of citizens. Even in cities such as Yangon and Mandalay, where polling stations are open, the atmosphere was largely subdued and tightly policed, the Hindustan Times says.
Added to this, the most popular political force in the country is absent altogether. Aung San Suu Kyi, the former civilian leader and enduring symbol of Myanmar’s democratic movement, remains behind bars and ageing. Now 80-years-old and from time to time reported as being in ill-health, her party, which won a landslide victory in 2020, has been dissolved and barred from contesting the vote. In its place, a field of military-aligned ‘parties’ and approved candidates are competing in a process widely criticised as being rigged from the outset.
As a result, international reaction has been scathing. Human rights groups, Western governments and the United Nations have all dismissed the election as a sham. Think Tank at the European Parliament ran a piece earlier in the month to this end, titled in part “Myanmar: Towards a 'sham' election”.
Efforts to shame the junta’s sweeping restrictions on free speech, assembly and the press, in addition to the ongoing imprisonment of thousands of political opponents is well known.
To this end, the only real beneficiary of the process is the Union Solidarity and Development Party, a pro-military vehicle widely seen as a civilian façade for continued martial rule. Victory for the party will - not would - allow the generals to claim constitutional legitimacy without surrendering real power, thus for Myanmar’s military leadership, the election is not a risk but an insurance policy.
Continued trade with regional partners
On the ground in Myanmar, the junta has long argued that restoring order must come before political freedoms. Yet, as its regional neighbours and the wider world know, it was the coup itself that plunged the country into chaos. Many leaders in the region though opt to turn a blind eye and have to some extent chosen to ignore the internal crisis and oppression of the populace in order to maintain business and trade ties.
These include China, a long time partner pushing the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor under the Belt and Road Initiative and Thailand for whom cross-border commerce includes agricultural products and consumer goods. India too, as well as Singapore and to a lesser extent Malaysia and Indonesia continue to trade with the junta. This is despite the fact that within Myanmar’s borders, air strikes on civilian areas and village burnings coupled to mass arrests continue and have become routine. More than 1mn people have been displaced and humanitarian needs continue to rise. This was only exacerbated by the magnitude 7.7, March 28 earthquake in the region which killed over 3,600.
In this context, the ‘election’ looks less like a step towards any form of effective stability and peace and more like an attempt to rewrite the historical and political narrative - with the tacit help of trade partners across South and Southeast Asia.
By pointing to ballot boxes and polling stations, the generals hope to persuade the wider world to accept the status-quo as it is recognised by China, Thailand India et al, albeit without looking too closely.
For many living in Myanmar, with nowhere else to go, however, staying away from the polls is the only form of protest still open to them.
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