Junta Aligned Party Likely To Win Myanmar Polls, Projections Show | World News

As the polls open in Myanmar, it is estimated that the junta-backed party will win the elections, Jakarta Post reported on Sunday. Voters in Myanmar are casting their ballots in 2021 for the first general election to start on Sunday, five years after the last civilian government was overthrown by a military coup.

Quoting Lalita Hanwong, a lecturer at Thailand’s Kasetsart University and an expert on Myanmar, the Jakarta Post reported that the elections would see the return to power of the army-linked Union Solidarity and Development Party, which is led by retired generals and fielded a fifth of all candidates against severely diminished competition.

“The junta’s election was designed to extend the military’s servile authority over the people,” he said. “And the USDP and other allied parties with the military will join forces to form the next government.” The junta, which has ruled Myanmar since then, plans to hold two rounds of voting on January 11 and January 25, covering 265 of Myanmar’s 330 districts, after the first phase on Sunday, according to the Jakarta Post.

The United Nations, some countries and human rights groups reportedly viewed the elections as not free, fair or credible, in which anti-junta political parties did not compete. Jakarta Post said that the dates for vote counting and election results have not yet been announced.

“There are no conditions that will ensure the free and meaningful participation of the public in the exercise of the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk reportedly said last week.

The junta argues that the elections provide a way out of the conflict, pointing to previous military-backed elections, including one in 2010 that brought in a quasi-civilian government that implemented a series of political and economic reforms.

According to an opinion piece published Saturday in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the polls “will open a new chapter for Myanmar and shift the narrative from a conflict-affected, crisis-ridden country to a new page of hope for peacebuilding and economic reconstruction.”

Residents of the neighborhood stated that they observed that the elections were quiet compared to previous election campaigns, and they did not report that the military government applied any pressure to force people to vote. In the midst of this, USDP was the most visible.

The USDP was founded in 2010, when it won an election that the opposition had boycotted. According to Jakarta Post, the party ruled the country with its military supporters until 2015, then Suu Kyi’s NLD took over.
Large areas of Myanmar will not be able to participate in the elections due to ongoing conflict.

According to CNN, ongoing clashes between junta forces and ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy fighters have made voting impossible in many regions, especially the border regions and central parts of Myanmar.

Elections are being held even while Myanmar’s most popular political leader, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, whose government was overthrown by the military in February 2021, is in prison. His party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was dissolved, effectively excluded from the political process.

Last year, rebel forces inflicted significant losses on the Junta army, briefly raising hopes among the opposition that the junta’s grip on power might weaken. The army continued its operations against the opposition even while the vote was taking place.

The military has denied accusations of abuse, saying it targeted “terrorists” and arguing that the elections were aimed at building what it called a “genuine, disciplined multi-party democratic system”. He rejected international criticism of the polls.

The United States and most Western countries do not recognize the junta as the legitimate government of Myanmar. Several Asian countries, including Japan and Malaysia, also criticized the election.