Myanmar’s 2024 census was almost certainly the most contentious – and deadly – ever conducted.
As a result of a failed attempt to document the population in Myanmar between October and December last year, enumerators and their heavily armed guards from Myanmar’s military resorted to attacks on them.
Seven soldiers serving as security for census takers in the Mandalay Region were killed in an explosion-related incident in early October. Three more soldiers were killed in Kayin State, east of the nation, after opposition forces fired a shoulder-launched rocket at their vehicle.
“The census was an utter, abject failure”, Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser to the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.
The government, however, has called it a marvellous success.
Myanmar’s census was met with such violent resistance, which confirms its significance in the country’s democratic trajectory. It is a mundane administrative exercise in most parts of the world.
Publishing preliminary results in January, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Population said the census represents the military government’s “commitment to national reconciliation”.
The military’s attempt to hold a national election later this year, the first since the military’s coup that sparked a civil war in Myanmar four years ago.
Elections are merely an attempt to legitimize the illegitimate regime that seized power in February 2021, even though the military has depicted a potential vote as a return to democratic norms.
The National Unity Government (NUG), an exiled administration that includes lawmakers who have been removed from the military, said Zaw Kyaw, a spokesperson for the presidential office. “The election will be a sham, it will just be for show.
“The military believes that]holding an election] will be an exit strategy, and they can get some legitimacy in the eyes of some countries by hosting a sham election”, he told Al Jazeera.
“But this election will not lead to stability. More violence and instability will result from it.
Absolutely no reliable information
In November 2020, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to a landslide victory in Myanmar’s general election, winning 82 percent of seats contested in the country’s national and regional parliaments.
Three months later, in the early hours of February 1, the military would overthrow Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, arresting her and other NLD figures. The military justified the coup by blatantly discrediting the electoral results, which the military declared invalid. The coup sparked a nationwide uprising against pro-democracy protests, which turned into an armed rebellion that still engulfs large sections of the nation today.
The military-installed government, which has been in place since 2021 under a state of emergency that it has renewed several times as it fights ethnically armed groups and more recent pro-democracy rebels in the country, has been in power since then under Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as its prime minister and more recently as president.
The military extended the state of emergency until July 31 for an additional six months on Friday.
The military announced the extension of emergency rule, noting that “there are still more tasks to be completed to successfully hold the general election.”
“Especially for a free and fair election, stability and peace is still needed”, it said.
Myanmar’s military said its goal for the 2024 census was to provide an “accurate” voter list for the next election.
In order to stop widespread voter fraud, it claims allegedly influenced the vote in 2020, prevent the double-counting of ballots and the participation of ineligible voters.
The junta founded the progressive voice for democracy and human rights, Khin Ohmar, claiming that “the junta produced absolutely no credible data.”
She told Al Jazeera, “The junta’s sham census lacked coverage of major swaths of territory and significant segments of the population, particularly in areas controlled by democratic resistance groups or revolutionary forces.”
By its own account, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Population said it only fully counted populations in 145 out of Myanmar’s 330 townships, which appears to indicate the military now controls less than half the country.
The ministry expressed profound gratitude to the Myanmar population for their enthusiastic participation in the census, calling it a “resounding success” despite the limited census data.
Khin Ohmar claimed that the census’s participants were actually subject to being “forced” into providing personal information, frequently at gunpoint.
She said, “It is obvious that the junta will continue to use these violent tactics against civilians for its sham election.”
The military junta is certain that any public participation was coerced, she continued.
Al Jazeera repeatedly asked the military government of Myanmar for comment.
A crisis of “unprecedented magnitude”
Just how high stakes elections are for Myanmar’s severely weakened military cannot be overstated.
The once unattainable goal of a regime-free Myanmar appears more realistic than ever now, despite serious setbacks experienced by the military since late 2023, despite frequent proclamations of its impending demise since the coup.
A devastating assault on military-controlled territory in northern Shan State was carried out by the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a coalition of ethnic armed groups, including the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army.
The military’s worst territorial and personnel losses in its history were continued by the regime into 2024 as a result. The United States Institute of Peace claims that a “unprecedented scale” crisis affected 91 towns and 167 military battalions.
Plummeting morale has also seen a “historic surge in defections” from the army.
Critics claim that holding a national election is a fantasy given the diminishing control and growing violent resistance.
The regime’s Election Commission Chairman Ko Ko said in December the polls would be held in just under half of the country’s 330 townships nationwide. But even this figure appears unduly optimistic.
The military is increasingly seen as a tool for the taking by Myanmar’s pro-democracy resistance groups and anti-military ethnic armed groups.
While the ousted NLD administration, in government between 2015 and 2021, attempted to strike a balance between civilian and military rule during the country’s short-lived democratic experiment, a return to the pre-coup status quo of military officials in government is no longer an option.
“Our main goal]in 2025] is to eliminate the military dictatorship”, the NUG’s Zaw Kyaw said.
“The military is weaker than it has ever been in Myanmar’s history”, he added.
Horsey of the Crisis Group believes that national polls are “increasingly likely” this year despite the inherent security risks.
Time is also ticking for Min Aung Hlaing, Horsey says, as grumbling grows louder from within the military establishment.
“These polls are being pressured by the elite. They don’t want Min Aung Hlaing ensconced as dictator-for-life. Most don’t relish the prospect of him sticking around forever”, Horsey said.
“He’s consolidated all power in his own hands and they want a slice of the action”, he said.
The military’s most influential patron, China, “has also been pushing very hard”, Horsey added.
“]China] has no interest in electoral democracy, but they do not like]Min Aung Hlaing] and think elections will be a way of diluting his power. Perhaps even bringing more reasonable, predictable and amendable people to the fore”, he said.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), one organization that doesn’t support elections in Myanmar, is one.
The 10-member bloc, of which Myanmar is a member, has been bitterly divided on the issue. However, ASEAN’s foreign ministers jointly told the government in a January statement that holding elections despite the country’s growing civil war should not be a “priority.”
‘ Violent, messy ‘ and ‘ bizarre exercise ‘
Under Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 constitution, authorities are mandated to hold elections within six months of the state of emergency being lifted – currently set for July 31 – with November the traditional month to do so.
But for the vast majority of Myanmar’s embattled population, what month the military will hold the sham polls is irrelevant.
Holding “elections are an absolute anathema to most people” in Myanmar, the Crisis Group’s Horsey said.
“It is seen as – and is – an attempt]by the military] to wipe away the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi’s landslide victory five years ago”, he said.
People simply won’t accept or resist that, according to the statement.
Such resistance was already evident in the attacks disrupting the census, and Horsey believes the elections will similarly be a “violent, messy, incomplete process”.
“Who in their right mind would campaign, open party offices, and participate in the election? There’s going to be ambushes, attacks, assassinations – it’s going to be very very dangerous”, he said.
“It’s going to be a bizarre exercise, something that no one else, I think, would recognise as an election”.
Horsey said there was “consensus” among the majority of resistance groups that the most vulnerable people should not be targeted for elections, but he believes polling places will “absolutely be seen as a legitimate target” in the eyes of voters.
The NUG’s Zaw Kyaw said while there will “definitely” be attacks on military targets by the People’s Defence Force (PDF), there will be “no attacks on civilians” participating in the vote.
However, even if there is only a limited amount of violence against civilians, punitive measures of all kinds are almost certainly taken against those who are suspected of working with the military regime.
During the census, nine enumerators, mostly female teachers, were arrested and held for more than a month by PDF fighters in Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi Region.
Bo Sea, a Tanintharyi PDF spokesman, told Al Jazeera that while the group recognises some civilians are forced into participating in election preparations, those deemed willing collaborators will face “even more severe” punishment than census participants.
“We consider these people as collaborating with the junta’s election process as accomplices”, he said. “Civil teachers and election officials will be involved.” They are aligning themselves with the junta as a result of their participation, he continued.
Bo Sea is not alone.
Ko Aung Kyaw Hein, a spokesman for the PDF in Sagaing Region in Myanmar’s northwest, said those who “support the terrorist military council]in carrying out the elections] will be prosecuted under counterterrorism laws”.
Bo Than Mani, chief of the Yinmarbin PDF, also in Sagaing Region, told Al Jazeera his unit will “disrupt” the election, but denied it would conduct violent attacks against those participating.
What is clear, at least to those in Myanmar’s resistance, is that regardless of how the national elections play out, it represents a desperate act by a desperate, sinking military regime.
“Their morale is at the lowest”, Zaw Kyaw said.
“I have no idea when the world will collapse.” It could happen tomorrow. It could happen in months. It could happen in a year”, he said.
“But undoubtedly the military will fall.” Nobody has the power to stop the military from crumbling.
Source: Aljazeera
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