Myanmar junta stages election after five years of civil war

'Unfair election': young voters absent from Myanmar polls

December 29, 2025 00:00:00

YANGON: Members of Myanmar's Union Election Commission (UEC) count ballots after the closing of polls at a polling station in the first phase of Myanmar's general election in Yangon on Sunday. — AFP

YANGON, Dec 28 (AFP): Voters trickled to Myanmar's heavily restricted polls on Sunday, with the ruling junta touting the exercise as a return to democracy five years after it ousted the last elected government and triggered a civil war.

Former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed, while her hugely popular party has been dissolved and was not taking part.

Campaigners, Western diplomats and the United Nations' rights chief have all condemned the phased month-long vote, citing a ballot stacked with military allies and a stark crackdown on dissent.

The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party is widely expected to emerge as the largest bloc, in what critics say would be a rebranding of martial rule.

"We guarantee it to be a free and fair election," junta chief Min Aung Hlaing told reporters after casting his ballot in the capital Naypyidaw.

"It's organised by the military, we can't let our name be tarnished."

The Southeast Asian nation of around 50 million people is riven by civil war and there will be no voting in areas controlled by rebel factions that have risen up to challenge military rule.

While opposition factions threatened to attack the election, there were no reports of violence against polling day activities by the time voting ended at 4:00 pm (0930 GMT).

Snaking queues of voters formed for the previous election in 2020, which the military declared void a few months later when it ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and seized power.

Meanwhile, the droves of young people who queued to cast ballots in past elections in Myanmar were conspicuous by their absence from Sunday's military-run poll, with older voters dominating the turnout.

Legions have left the war-ravaged country since the military seized power five years ago, including many men of conscription age-up to 35 -- or youngsters seeking better livelihoods away from Myanmar's moribund economy.

And even those still in the country were not particularly eager to take part in the vote, which international rights campaigners have dismissed as a sham.

"Most of the people who go to vote are elderly," said one man in his 20s in the Mandalay area, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.