Myanmar election enters final stage amid airstrikes and exclusions

Polling stations open on Sunday for the final stage of Myanmar’s three-phase election, a one-sided vote that has been widely derided as a sham, with politicians jailed, the main opposition party banned and conflict raging across parts of the country.Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has defended the vote as “free and fair”, presenting it as a return to democracy and stability. The election is happening almost five years after the military seized power in a coup, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggering a fierce conflict. The 80-year-old has been detained since she was ousted, and her party has been banned.The UN, human rights experts and some western governments have rejected the election, saying it lacks legitimacy.Tom Andrews, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said the vote had been orchestrated by the military to ensure a landslide by its political proxy, the Union Solidarity and Development party (USDP).“The junta is banking on the world’s fatigue, hoping that the international community will accept military rule dressed up in civilian clothing,” he said. “Governments must not allow that to happen.”Just days ahead of voting, 21 people were killed and 28 injured in a military airstrike on a village where displaced people from the northern township of Bhamo were sheltering in Kachin state, Associated Press reported. Voting is due to take place in Bhamo on Sunday.In total, 57 parties are competing, though only six are doing so nationwide, and analysts say none of the parties on the ballot paper represent anti-military sentiment. The USDP is running by far the largest number of candidates.According to election monitoring group Anfrel, 57% of the parties that ran in the 2020 general election no longer exist, even though they received more than 70% of votes and 90% of seats.Malaysia has said the regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), will not endorse the poll or send observers. However, it is unclear if individual member states will increase their engagement with Myanmar’s leadership after the vote. China, a key military ally, is supporting the election, which it considers a path to stability.The election has taken place in three stages, with the first phase held in December and a second phase held earlier in January. Turnout appeared lower than usual during earlier stages of voting in Yangon and the pre-election period lacked the large rallies and excitement of previous votes. Many voters in Yangon did not want to be interviewed by media, saying it was not safe to discuss politics openly.A new election protection law was enacted in July, under which any criticism of the vote can lead to a minimum sentence of three years in prison, and even the death penalty.Voting has been happening in populous cities such as Mandalay and Yangon but analysts estimate about a third of the country’s territory has been excluded from the process because it is under the control of anti-junta groups or gripped by fighting.The military coup in 2021 triggered a fierce conflict that continues to rage across the country, with a diverse patchwork of opposition groups fighting against junta rule. Acled, which tracks conflicts globally, has described it as “the most fragmented conflict in the world”, and places the country second on its conflict index, which measures conflicts based on their deadliness, danger to civilians, geographic diffusion and the number of armed groups involved.Su Mon, Acled’s senior analyst for Asia Pacific, said that while the military has sought to portray elections as a managed exit from political crisis and conflict, its counter-offensives have only increased in the run-up to the vote. “In an effort to regain territory, the military continued its repeated airstrikes on civilian areas throughout 2025, leading to the highest number of airstrikes and associated fatalities in any single year since 2021,” she said.Estimates of the death toll from Myanmar’s post-coup conflict vary, though Acled has recorded 92,000 fatalities since 2021.Su Mon said: “As the final round of elections unfolds, there are several foregone conclusions: the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development party will win the election in a landslide, and conflict will only continue to escalate.”