Overshadowed by civil war and doubts about the credibility of the polls, voters in Myanmar were casting their ballots in a general election starting on Sunday, the first since a military coup toppled the last civilian government in 2021.

The junta that has since ruled Myanmar says the vote is a chance for a fresh start politically and economically for the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

But the election has been derided by critics - including the United Nations, some Western countries and human rights groups - as an exercise that is not free, fair or credible, with anti-junta political parties not competing.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, deposed by the military months after her National League for Democracy won the last general election by a landslide in 2020, remains in detention, and the political party she led to power has been dissolved.

Polls to prolong Junta’s ‘power of slavery’, academic says

Mass protests followed the ouster of Suu Kyi’s party, only to be violently suppressed by the military. Many protesters then took up arms against the junta in what became a nationwide rebellion.

In this election, the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party, led by retired generals and fielding one-fifth of all candidates against severely diminished competition, is set to return to power, said Lalita Hanwong, a lecturer and Myanmar expert at Thailand’s Kasetsart University.

“The junta’s election is designed to prolong the military’s power of slavery over people,” she said. “And USDP and other allied parties with the military will join forces to form the next government.”

Following the initial phase on Sunday, two rounds of voting will be held on January 11 and January 25, covering 265 of Myanmar’s 330 townships, although the junta does not have complete control of all those areas as it fights in the war that has consumed the country since the coup.

Dates for counting votes and announcing election results have not been declared.

With fighting still raging in parts of the country, the elections are being held in an environment of violence and repression, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said last week.

“There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly that allow for the free and meaningful participation of the people,” said Turk, the high commissioner for human rights.

Election to ‘turn new page for Myanmar’, state media says

The junta maintains that the elections provide a pathway out of the conflict, pointing to previous military-backed polls, including one in 2010 that brought in a quasi-civilian government that pushed through a series of political and economic reforms.

The polls “will turn a new page for Myanmar, shifting the narrative from a conflict-affected, crisis-laden country to a new chapter of hope for building peace and reconstructing the economy,” an opinion piece in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said on Saturday.

On the streets of Myanmar’s largest cities, there has been none of the energy and excitement of previous election campaigns, residents said, although they did not report any coercion by the military administration to push people to vote.

In the lacklustre canvassing, the USDP was the most visible. Founded in 2010, the year it won an election boycotted by the opposition, the party ran the country in concert with its military backers until 2015, when it was swept away by Suu Kyi’s NLD.

The junta’s attempt to establish a stable administration in the midst of an expansive conflict is fraught with risk, analysts say, and significant international recognition is unlikely for any military-controlled government - even if it has a civilian veneer.

Myanmar’s weakened economy, relentless conflict and a seemingly preordained political route have left some voters dejected, including a 31-year-old man who lives in the commercial capital Yangon.

“No matter who I vote for, the USDP will win,” he said, asking not to be named for fear of retribution from junta authorities. “So, I will just vote USDP.”