Myanmar’s junta-backed party declares majority in poll decried as ‘fraudulent’

Myanmar’s dominant pro-military party has won a junta-run election, according to a party source on Monday, after a month-long vote that democracy watchdogs dismissed as a rebranding of army rule.While the military has said the election will return power to the people, popular democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi has remained detained since the coup and her party has been dissolved, while critics say the ballot was stacked with army allies.“We won a majority already,” a senior official from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to share preliminary results.“We are in the position to form a new government,” they said, after the vote’s third and final phase took place on Sunday. “As we won in the election, we will move forward.”A Myanmar electoral official announces the results at a polling station in Yangon on Sunday. Photo: EPAMany analysts describe the USDP as a civilian proxy of the military that seized power in a 2021 Coup, toppling Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratic government.Voting was not held in huge patches of the country controlled by rebel factions fighting in the civil war, triggered by the coup – another hurdle cited by those questioning the poll’s mandate.