CHIANG RAI, Thailand — Myanmar's military rulers are planning a staggered general election beginning Dec. 28 and ending in late January. Their hope is that it will return some stability to the country and help end the junta's international diplomatic isolation.
The vote will be taking place despite a brutal, ongoing civil war that followed the military's 2021 coup, plunging the country into chaos. Since then, the military has indiscriminately bombed civilians, thrown tens of thousands in jail and left millions more displaced. Aid agencies say more than 11 million people are facing food insecurity amid the backdrop of a military trying to claw back large swaths of territory captured by the opposition since the coup.
"Is there anyone who believes that there will be free and fair elections in Myanmar?" asked United Nations Secretary General António Guterres at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Malaysia in late October. "It is quite obvious that in the present state of conflict and taking into account the records of human rights of the military junta … that the conditions for free and fair elections are not there."
To ensure the elections go its way, the military has introduced a new law that bans what it calls "interference" in the election process.
Human Rights Watch said in November that nearly 100 people had been detained under the law. By last week, the military said that number had more than doubled, some charged for posting on social media criticizing the election process, or even just 'liking' someone else's post. Several are facing lengthy prison terms for questioning an election even military leader Min Aung Hlaing admits won't be held in many contested or rebel held areas, which is almost half the country.
Most Western governments have refused to send observers, denouncing the election as a "sham." Critics say the military is trying to create a parliament dominated by the military's proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). It's the same party that was savaged by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) in the last election in 2020 — which set the stage for the February 2021 coup.
The NLD is banned this time around. Suu Kyi and other party leaders remain in prison. "For all I know, she could be dead," her son Kim Aris recently told Reuters. And the regime has pushed hard in recent months to retake territory lost to the rebels to bolster its election chances.
"After a couple of years of catastrophic losses, the military has begun to regain the initiative and is pushing back opposition forces in key strategic areas across the country," says Morgan Michaels, a Southeast Asia security analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in Singapore.
The military's conscription campaign is one reason, he says, as is its increased use of sophisticated drones and better organization on the battlefield overall. At the same time, he says: "The opposition groups are incredibly fragmented, and have made a number of strategic blunders on their side as well."
The junta has also gotten a lot of help from neighboring China — one of the few countries to endorse the election, along with Russia and, to a lesser extent, neighboring India. China doesn't like the Myanmar military or its coup, but dislikes the chaos that's followed even more, says Yun Sun, who directs the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C.
From Beijing's perspective, she adds, Myanmar's civil war has threatened China's huge infrastructure projects in Myanmar — gas and oil pipelines — and its geopolitical ambitions. "If you think about the China-Myanmar economic corridor, the key word here is corridor. … Myanmar being China's corridor leading to South Asia, Southeast Asia, and also to the Indian Ocean. When the country is in a civil war, the China-Myanmar economic corridor leads to nothing," Sun says.
In that context, she says, China sees Myanmar's military "as a necessary evil."
"You can call them an ulcer or a tumor, a malignant presence in the country's domestic politics, but it has been there, and it's not going anywhere," she says. "Five years of civil war did not kick them out, and the Chinese will not tilt the balance of power in a way that the military will be forced out."
In fact, China's done just the opposite — pressuring ethnic armed organizations in the north to cede territory captured from the regime. More importantly, it has told the largest and best-equipped ethnic Chinese militia to stop arming other rebel groups or else. And that's a problem, says Michaels.
"Without the weapons and ammunition supply the opposition groups just don't have the firepower that they need to launch major offensives," Michaels says. At the same time, he says, "the opposition groups are incredibly fragmented and have made a number of strategic blunders as well."
There's another factor working in the junta's favor — fatigue. Nearly five years in, the optimism among many of the young people who joined the armed struggle against the military after the coup is starting to fade, according to analyst Min Zaw Oo.
"One of the indicators is how many of those fighters are now going into Thailand and moving to places like Chiang Mai," he says. He suggests it shows "how young people are leaving the armed struggles to the neighboring countries for better livelihood."
But many still remain committed to the cause of toppling the military. Rebel commander Ko Ta Mar was a doctor before the civil war, exchanging his stethoscope for an automatic weapon to fight the military after the coup. He says he's frustrated with the opposition's lack of direction and unity, "There are good times and bad times in this revolution," he says, but he also believes it's an existential moment for the country's people — their best chance to end the military's longtime hold on power and politics for good. That's something he says he's still willing to fight for, even with the opposition's recent setbacks.
"If you see the crisis in the country as a disease, the election is like injecting steroids into a patient. The pain can be eased temporarily, but it will be worse in the long term. That's why we reject the elections," he says.
But after nearly five years of war, economic hardship and displacement, many Burmese simply want anything that offers the hope of some relief, says longtime Myanmar analyst David Mathieson. He says the shadow National Unity Government — the rump political successor to the government ousted in the coup — is failing in the minds of many citizens and citizen soldiers fighting the military.
The National Unity Government "[doesn't] have a plan," Mathieson says.
"There's a growing sense of look, it's not about the elections, it's about what kind of regime, quasi-civilian government comes afterwards," Mathieson says. Many people he's spoken to, he says, are telling him, "We hate the regime, but at least they've got a plan, they've got a way to kind of get us out of this and stabilize. We don't see that there'll be a bright democratic future, but it could be something."
It's a low bar, but one the military is gambling might be just high enough to achieve those twin goals of restoring some order domestically and ease its diplomatic isolation abroad. The second and third round of elections are scheduled for January.
Wai Moe contributed reporting from the Thai-Myanmar border.