Myanmar poll set to be far from free, fair

NEARLY five years after it usurped Aung San Suu Kyi’s election victory with a brazen coup, the Myanmar junta is embarking on a futile quest for legitimacy through an election that begins on December 28 and continues till January 2026. The poll will not give the junta what it wants. It is also likely to worsen the chaotic conditions within the country.

The main political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), and many others are not contesting this election. The NLD has been dissolved by the military rulers because it refused to register itself under a new law that effectively disqualified Suu Kyi, the imprisoned party leader and the face of the country’s democratic aspirations, from participating. With the military unable to establish control over the entire country since its 2020 coup, the election cannot be held in many areas of its diverse and fragmented expanse, where the junta remains locked in battles with pro-democracy militias and Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs).

The Suu Kyi-led NLD had swept the 2020 election. Under the Constitution (drawn up and adopted by the military in 2008 at a time when Suu Kyi had not yet been freed from house arrest and the West was pushing the junta to loosen its grip), 25 per cent of the 476 seats in the combined houses of the national parliament are reserved for the military. But the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the party of the military, fared badly. Myanmar is a federation of seven regions and seven states. The NLD won more than 80 per cent of the seats in these assemblies too.

Rattled by the results, the military chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, started dropping broad hints that he would not accept the results. As such, the coup was not a surprise. The last-minute power grab took place just a few hours before the newly elected parliamentarians were to take the oath of office.

Suu Kyi’s promise to the country in 2020 was that she would reform the Constitution and complete the transition to democracy that had begun five years earlier. From her point of view, the army’s meddling in governance was preventing a ceasefire with EAOs and a functioning federation. After she won the election, it was expected that her first move would be to clip the military’s wings. It was not to be. The military pre-empted her.

But then, neither could the junta establish itself firmly. It tried its best to impose its writ across the country but failed. It has jailed thousands of pro-democracy activists (no one knows for sure where Suu Kyi has been imprisoned) and shot dead hundreds of others at protests, used aerial bombardment against its own citizens and burnt entire villages to bring the people to heel. The most recent attack from the skies was just last week on a hospital in Rakhine state, in which 30 people were killed and 70 injured.

But the “Spring Revolution”, the pro-democracy movement, which includes armed resistance by groups called “People’s Defence Forces” (PDFs), allied to the National Unity Government (NUG) — it has proclaimed itself as the country’s real government, and its leaders operate from hiding or exile in other countries — has been determined to deny the military full control. Some of the EAOs also joined hands with the PDFs in the resistance. Only from mid-2025, after China brokered a ceasefire with a major EAO, has the military been able to reverse some of its losses.

It is unclear how polling will be held in parts of Myanmar that the junta does not control. The election has been denounced by the NUG and other critics as “fraudulent” and a “sham”. The USDP is poised to win most of the seats in what promises to be a moth-eaten election, and will in turn prop up the junta.

India has reportedly provided EVMs for the election, but has made an ambiguous statement about the poll itself. Last week, the MEA spokesperson said New Delhi “supports Myanmar’s transition to democracy and is of the view that participation of all political stakeholders is important for the credibility and stability of the electoral exercise, which needs to be free, fair and inclusive. India will continue to support all efforts that advance peace, dialogue and a return to normalcy in Myanmar.”

Delhi knows that all “stakeholders” are not participating; it knows that the poll will be far from free and inclusive. And it would be surprising if the election paves the way for dialogue, and a return to a political settlement to the violent impasse in Myanmar, let alone democracy. For India, which shares a 1,643-km-long border with Myanmar spanning four states in the North-East, the developments in that country are of importance because typically, what happens in Myanmar spills over into India.

After the coup, thousands of refugees fled military rule into Mizoram. Soldiers of the Myanmar army have fled into India for protection as their posts got taken over by the ethnic militia in Chin state. During the aerial bombardment in Chin state, Indian villagers close to the border in Mizoram had to flee at a moment’s notice. Not only this, with direct implications for Indian security, the Myanmar army, hit by desertions, is known to have co-opted North-East insurgent groups in Sagaing, another border region, to fight pro-democracy groups.

In Rakhine, the ethnic Arakan National Army has taken control of the entire state except three areas: the capital Sittwe, with its India-developed port; further to the south, Kyaukphyu, which has a port developed by the Chinese as part of their Belt and Road Initiative; and an offshore site that pumps gas to Kyaukphyu from where it goes all the way to China.

While the Arakan militia seems to have exercised caution with regard to the interests of two of Myanmar’s big neighbours, the uncertainty in the province has jeopardised India’s highly vaunted Kaladan multinodal connectivity project to the northeastern states via Myanmar, bypassing Bangladesh. Another ambitious project, the Trilateral highway, aiming to connect India to South-East Asia, remains incomplete because of the unsettled conditions in Myanmar.

Plainly put, India, which has engaged with an exceptionally cruel junta at the expense of the goodwill of those fighting for democracy in Myanmar in the hope of securing its interests, has not got its money’s worth. The government even blames the unrest in Manipur on “infiltration” from Myanmar. It is now building a fence along the India-Myanmar border, making the same mistake that the British rulers made with the Durand Line in Afghanistan. A line that divides homes, families, villages and ethnic groups will never be accepted by the people living on either side. Meanwhile, China has used ethnic groups to protect its own mining and infrastructure projects, and given the junta what it wants in arms and ammunition to take on the militias.

A bit late in the day, India has begun engaging with the pro-democracy groups, permitting them to carry out low-key activities in the country. The poll results are a foregone conclusion, just like the time when Gen Pervez Musharraf held a referendum to make himself the President of Pakistan. For India, the security and diplomatic challenges from the wars within Myanmar and the increasing Chinese footprint in that country are set to continue. And Act East will remain a dream.