Conflict-ravaged Myanmar Votes in Broadly Condemned 'Sham' Election.

Myanmar is going to the polls in a vote broadly rejected as a farce, with key opposition groups dissolved, many of their leaders imprisoned and as much as half of the country unlikely to vote because of an continuing internal conflict.

A Phased Ballot Amid War

The military government is holding a staggered election nearly five years after it took control in a takeover, which sparked widespread opposition and spiralled into a devastating conflict.

Analysts note the junta, with China's support, is attempting to validate and consolidate its power as it looks for a way out of the costly stalemate.

"The environment does not allow for the practice of the rights of free speech, association or peaceful assembly," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said.

Over two hundred people have been prosecuted for disrupting or criticising the election under a recently enacted legislation which imposes severe punishments, including the death penalty.

Director Mike Tee, actor Kyaw Win Htut and comedian Ohn Daing were among the prominent figures convicted under the law, which was passed in July. They were each given a prison sentence of seven years after criticising a film promoting the elections.

Immense Challenges and Coercion

Civilians are "being coerced from all sides," Mr Türk noted in a statement, pointing out that armed rebel groups have issued their own threats asking people to shun the polls.

The military has been engaged on multiple battlefields, against both armed resistance groups who oppose the coup, as well as ethnic armies which have their own forces. It lost control of large parts of the country in a series of major setbacks, but regained territory this year after sustained aerial bombardment made possible through support from Beijing and Moscow.

All of this and the fact that significant regions of the country are still under opposition control presents a massive operational hurdle for conducting an election.

A Restricted Poll

The ballot is set to take place in three rounds over the next month in two hundred and seventy-four of the country's three hundred and thirty townships, with the rest deemed too unstable. Results are expected by late January.

There is not expected to be any voting in as much as one half of the country. Even in the townships that are voting, not all constituencies will go to the polls, making it challenging to predict a possible turnout.

Six parties, including the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, are fielding candidates nationwide, while dozens more parties and non-aligned contenders will compete only at the state or regional levels.

Some 40 parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy, which achieved landslide victories in 2015 and 2020, have been dissolved. Suu Kyi and a number of the party's key leaders have been imprisoned under charges widely condemned as fabricated, while the rest are in exile.

International Condemnation

"Through dividing the vote into stages, the junta can adjust tactics if the results in the first phase do not go their way," noted Htin Kyaw Aye, a spokesman of the election-monitoring group Spring Sprouts.

Nations in the West, including the United Kingdom and the European Parliament, have rejected the vote as a pretence, while neighbouring group Asean has urged negotiations to come before any election.

The Burmese junta has dismissed criticism of the polls, maintaining that it aims to "return [the country] to a democracy with multiple parties".

"This vote is being held for Myanmar. It is being held for the people of this country. It is not being held for the outside world," a junta spokesman told a briefing last week.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing warned earlier this week that those who choose not to participate are turning their back on "progress toward democracy".