Category World News

Myanmar has resumed voting in the second phase of the three-part general elections amid a raging civil war and allegations the polls are designed to legitimise military rule.

Polling stations opened at 6am local time on Sunday (23:30 GMT on Saturday) across 100 townships in parts of Sagaing, Magway, Mandalay, Bago and Tanintharyi regions, as well as Mon, Shan, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states.

Many of those areas have seen clashes in recent months or remain under heightened security.

Myanmar has been ravaged by conflict since the military ousted ⁠a civilian government in a 2021 coup and arrested its leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, leading to ​a civil war that has engulfed large parts of the impoverished nation of 51 million people.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s ‍National League for Democracy party, which swept the last election in 2020, has been dissolved along with dozens of other antimilitary parties for failing to register for the latest polls.

The election is taking place in three phases because of the ongoing conflict. The first phase unfolded on December 28 in 102 of the country’s 330 townships, while a third round is scheduled for January 25.

Some 65 townships will not participate due to ongoing clashes.

The military claimed a 52 percent voter turnout after the December 28 vote, while the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which analysts say is a civilian proxy for the military, said it won more than 80 percent of seats contested in the lower house of the legislature.

“The USDP is on track for a landslide victory, which is hardly a surprise given the extent to which the playing field was tilted in ​its favour. This included the removal of any serious rivals and a set of ‌laws designed to stifle opposition to the polls,” said Richard Horsey, senior Myanmar adviser for Crisis Group.

Myanmar has a two-house national legislature, totalling 664 seats. The party with a combined parliamentary majority can select the new president, who can pick a cabinet and form a new government. The military automatically receives 25 percent of seats in each house under the constitution.

On Sunday morning, people in Yangon, the country’s largest city, cast their ballots at schools, government offices and religious buildings, including in Aung San Suu Kyi’s former constituency of Kawhmu, located roughly 25km (16 miles) south of the city.

As she exited her polling station, 54-year-old farmer Than Than Sint told the AFP news agency she voted because she wants peace in Myanmar, even though she knows it will come slowly given the fractured country’s “problems”.

Still, “I think things will be better after the election”, she said.

Others were less enthusiastic. A 50-year-old resident of Yangon, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said, “The results lie only in the mouth of the military.”

“People have very little interest in this election,” the person added. “This election has absolutely nothing to do with escaping this suffering.”

The United Nations and human rights groups have called the elections a “sham” that attempt to sanitise the military’s image.

Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said earlier this week that the election was “not a free, fair, nor legitimate election” by “all measures”.

“It is a theatrical performance that has exerted enormous pressure on the people of Myanmar to participate in what has been designed to dupe the international community,” Andrews said.

Laws enacted by the military ahead of the vote have made protest or criticism of the elections punishable by up to 10 years in prison. More than 200 people currently face charges under the measure, the UN said, citing state media.

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

The town of Hpapun was once a bustling regional hub with banks, regional government offices, and stores that supplied the surrounding valleys.

It even had its own airport, which was particularly useful in this remote corner of eastern Myanmar.

The ruling military government say Hpapun will be part of the second phase of voting when the general election resumes this Sunday, after the first phase at the end of December.

The only problem: Hpapun is actually a ghost town.

On the walls of the police station, a sign asks helpfully, “Can We Help You?” in English. But just inside the gate, a white skull and crossbones on a red background warns of landmines planted inside.

When Al Jazeera visited Hpapun several weeks ago, not a single soul remained in the town, and all the businesses and homes had been either burned, bombed or reclaimed by the jungle.

Some voting will take place inside the Tactical Command post about 10km (6 miles) down the road. But anyone wanting to cast their ballot will have to get past landmines, booby traps and about 800 government soldiers, who have been under siege since 2024.

“The military junta’s upcoming election is a sham. It’s a staged, fake election designed to maintain the power they have stolen,” says Tin Oo, commander of the People’s Defence Force, one of the groups of fighters currently trying to clear government forces out of the area.

And at least 3.5 million voters across Myanmar won’t be able to vote because they’ve been forced from their homes by fighting in the civil war.

Aye Thu Zar fled from her village, Pazun Myaung, two months ago after it was hit by air strikes from government fighter jets. Now she and her son Moe live in a community of 150 other displaced people on the banks of the Sittang river, surviving on what she ekes out of the land. There are no relief agencies operating here offering handouts of shelter or food.

“No, I’m not voting,” she told me, sitting in the bamboo hut she now calls home. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything about it. We live in a remote area, so we don’t know about the election.”

Just two hours’ drive away in Yangon, Myanmar’s most populated city, security is light and the civil war feels far away. Many of the country’s urban areas voted in the first phase of the election on December 28. After the second phase on Sunday, a third phase will take place on January 25 before final results are declared.

But with military-backed parties the only option on the ballot paper, many voters simply didn’t show up in cities like Yangon, and while official figures are yet to be released, local election officials told Al Jazeera that the turnout could be as low as 35 percent.

None of these problems seems to be troubling the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), however. They’ve already been named as the easy winners in the first phase, with 89 out of 102 lower seats won, and it seems likely they will emerge as the winners when the outcome is announced at the end of the month.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

The last fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have left the city of Aleppo, according to officials, following a ceasefire deal that allowed evacuations after days of deadly clashes.

Aleppo Governor Azzam al-Gharib told Al Jazeera early on Sunday that Aleppo has become “empty of SDF fighters” after government forces coordinated their withdrawal on buses out of the city overnight.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) said the group had reached an understanding through international ⁠mediation on a ceasefire and the safe evacuation of civilians and fighters.

“We have reached an understanding that leads to a ceasefire and securing the evacuation of the dead, the wounded, the stranded civilians and the fighters from the Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods to northern and eastern Syria,” he said in a post on X.

“We call on the mediators to adhere to their promises to stop the violations and work towards a safe return for the displaced to their homes,” he added.

The development came after the Syrian army took over the Kurdish-majority neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud following days of clashes that broke out when talks to integrate the SDF into the national army collapsed.

At least 30 people were killed in the clashes, while more than 150,000 were displaced.