Conflict-ravaged Myanmar Votes in Broadly Condemned 'Sham' Election.

Myanmar is going to the polls in a vote broadly rejected as a farce, with key opposition groups banned, many of their leaders jailed and a significant portion of the country unlikely to vote because of an ongoing civil war.

A Staggered Vote Amid Conflict

The military government is conducting a staggered election nearly half a decade after it took control in a coup, which ignited widespread opposition and escalated into a devastating conflict.

Observers say the junta, with China's support, is seeking to legitimise and consolidate its power as it looks for a way out of the devastating deadlock.

"There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of free speech, association or peaceful assembly," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said.

Over two hundred people have been prosecuted for disrupting or criticising the polls under a recently enacted legislation which carries severe punishments, including the possibility of execution.

Film director Mike Tee, performer Kyaw Win Htut and comedian Ohn Daing were among the well-known individuals convicted under the law, which was passed in July. They were each handed a seven-year jail term after speaking out against a film endorsing the elections.

Immense Challenges and Coercion

Civilians are "being coerced from all sides," Mr Türk noted in a comment, adding that resistance forces have issued their own threats asking people to boycott the polls.

The military has been engaged on several fronts, against both armed resistance groups who oppose the coup, as well as ethnic armies which have their own militias. It ceded territory of vast areas of the country in a string of defeats, but regained territory this year after sustained aerial bombardment enabled by support from Beijing and Moscow.

All of this and the fact that large parts of the country are still under opposition control presents a massive operational hurdle for holding an election.

A Limited Vote

Voting is set to take place in three phases over the coming weeks in two hundred and seventy-four of the country's 330 townships, with the rest deemed not secure enough. Results are expected around the end of January.

There is unlikely to be any voting in up to fifty percent of the country. Even in the townships that are voting, some districts will hold elections, making it challenging to predict a possible turnout.

A handful of parties, including the junta-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party, are running nominees nationwide, while dozens more parties and non-aligned contenders will compete only at the local levels.

Some 40 parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy, which scored decisive wins in 2015 and 2020, have been banned. Suu Kyi and a number of the party's key leaders have been jailed under charges broadly viewed as fabricated, while others are in exile.

International Condemnation

"Through dividing the vote into phases, the authorities can change their approach if the outcomes in the first phase do not go their way," noted Htin Kyaw Aye, a spokesman of the election-monitoring group Spring Sprouts.

Nations in the West, including the UK and the European Parliament, have rejected the vote as a pretence, while regional bloc Asean has called for negotiations to precede any election.

The Burmese junta has rejected criticism of the polls, maintaining that it aims to "restore a multi-party democratic system".

"This vote is being held for Myanmar. It is being held for the citizens of Myanmar. It is not intended for the outside world," a military representative told a news conference last week.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing cautioned earlier this week that those who refuse to vote are turning their back on "progress toward democracy".