YANGON, Myanmar — Election officials conducted final preparations across polling stations in Myanmar’s capital on Saturday, testing voting equipment and arranging facilities ahead of Sunday’s controversial general election. The electoral exercise, conducted under military supervision, represents the country’s first voting process in five years since the armed forces seized power in 2021.
The multiphase election, scheduled to continue with subsequent rounds on January 11 and January 25, has been promoted by the ruling junta as a restoration of democratic governance. However, international observers and human rights organizations have uniformly dismissed the process as fundamentally flawed, citing extensive evidence of voter suppression, media censorship, and the exclusion of opposition parties.
Myanmar’s political landscape remains fractured by ongoing civil conflict that erupted following the military’s overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government. The widespread armed resistance has rendered voting impossible in numerous contested regions, further undermining the election’s credibility. Critics argue that the military administration seeks to leverage the electoral process to manufacture legitimacy for its authoritarian rule rather than facilitate genuine democratic transition.
The election commission’s technical preparations proceeded under tight security in Yangon, where photographers documented officials testing voting machines at a converted school polling station. Despite these visible preparations, the voting process excludes millions of displaced citizens and occurs amid documented human rights abuses perpetrated by military forces against civilian populations.