The head of Myanmar’s military government has said the country will hold a national election in December 2025 or January 2026.
General Min Aung Hlaing said the elections would be “free and fair” – adding that 53 political parties had already submitted their lists to participate.
It would be the first vote since his military junta seized power in a 2021 coup, arresting and imprisoning democratically elected leader Aung San Sung Kyi and making unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the previous year’s elections.
Since then, the country has been in turmoil, with a protest movement against the junta turning into an armed rebellion across the country.
Critics have described the announcement as a sham designed to maintain the junta’s power through proxy political parties.
Human Rights Watch, an NGO, told the BBC: “The junta is delusional if they think an election under the current circumstances will be considered remotely credible.
“As a precursor to elections, they need to end the violence, release all those arbitrarily detained, and allow all political parties to register and participate instead of dissolving opposition parties.”
The military junta has carried out a violent crackdown on dissent since taking power, executing democracy activists and imprisoning journalists.
But it has struggled to contain a widespread insurgency involving pro-democracy and ethnic rebel groups, and has limited control outside major cities.
The UN, citing the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), said in January that at least 6,231 civilians have been killed by the military, including 1,144 women and 709 children, over the past four years.
It warned in September that Myanmar was “sinking into an abyss of human suffering”.
