Contentious election looms in Myanmar

Two years after the Feb 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar, the country is locked in a vicious multi-front war. Now Asean has to confront a new challenge: how to respond to the military's plans for an election that's likely to trigger more violence.

- Tan Hui Yee

BANGKOK - Two years of turmoil have unravelled a decade of progress in Myanmar, and the question now is whether its coming election - stage-managed by the junta - will make a difference.

Despite the armed conflict triggered by its February 2021 coup, Myanmar's military regime is pushing ahead with preparations for fresh polls, likely by August, designed to perpetuate its control and sideline the popularly elected National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The junta plans to introduce proportional representation, a system that will ease the entry of smaller political parties that are theoretically easier for the military to control. On Thursday, it enacted a Political Parties Registration Law that would bar from election individuals or groups deemed to have committed "terrorist acts" or have been in contact with such groups. This rules out large numbers of NLD members who have, by virtue of their involvement with the National Unity Government (NUG), been branded as terrorists by the regime.

In a junta meeting on Jan 23, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing reiterated the need to compile "correct" lists of voters, and to hold an election that would allow people to cast their ballots without threat and coercion.

The reality is that intimidation and coercion are prevalent and expected to intensify. Even in cities with a veneer of normality like Yangon, armed soldiers and policemen have accompanied officials going from house to house to conduct a pre-polls census. Local news reports say at least 10 people conducting these voter counts have been killed, likely by groups resisting the junta. The junta claims that at least 13 election commission offices have been damaged in their attacks.