Myanmar junta fails to force high sham election turnout

Millions stay away from the polls in first phase of voting

- GRANT PECK

Myanmar’s military-appointed election body has begun announcing the winners of the first phase of its three-part general election, saying that a military-backed party has won the majority of seats, as widely expected.

Critics of the current system say that the election is designed to add a facade of legitimacy to the status quo. They say the polls are neither free nor fair because of the exclusion of major parties and government repression of dissenters. Opposition groups have called for a boycott by voters.

The military government said on Wednesday that more than 6 million people - about 52 per cent of the more than 11 million eligible voters in the first phase of elections held on 28 December - cast ballots, calling the turnout a decisive success.

Yet that falls well short of the turnout of about 70 per cent in general elections in 2020 and 2015, according to the US-based nonprofit International Foundation for Electoral Systems. The junta had gone to great lengths to force the Burmese public to head to the ballot box this time round.

The Union Election Commission, or UEC, yesterday announced in the state-run