Myanmar parties begin campaigning for elections

Parties approved to participate in Myanmar's junta-organised elections started campaigning on Tuesday, two months ahead of a poll being shunned at home and abroad as a ploy to legitimise military rule.

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Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup, deposing and jailing democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi after her party won the last election by wide margins.

The junta has lost swathes of the country to pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic-minority armed factions, but has touted elections as a path to reconciliation.

Rebels have pledged to boycott the vote in huge enclaves they control, while human rights groups and a UN expert have denounced the poll's restrictive conditions in junta-held zones.

"This election means nothing to me," said one 60-year-old man in Sittwe city, the capital of western Rakhine state.

"It is not a genuine election and I see no one supporting it."

"People are struggling with their own problems," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity for security concerns in a region where fighting has triggered a humanitarian crisis.

"I see more and more beggars in town as people are starving. People have no jobs and so the election seems like a distant prospect. They have no time to be interested in it."