POLL PLOT

As Myanmar's generals gamble on a stage-managed election, India faces the delicate task of safeguarding its interests with pragmatism while keeping China at bay

- BY ABHIJAN DAS

When Myanmar's military junta, the State Administration Council (SAC), announced in January that it would hold national elections by December this year, the declaration was met with more scepticism than surprise. For a country torn apart by civil war since the 2021 coup, the idea of staging a credible election sounds almost farcical. After all, how does the junta plan to conduct a national poll when barely 40 per cent of the country is under their control, resistance forces are tightening their grip on highways and arms factories and large swathes of rural Myanmar remain no-go zones for government officials? Against this backdrop, the proposed elections seem less a democratic milestone and more like a political theatre.

The Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) retains nominal control in cities and urban centres, and its grip on the hinterland is tenuous. Resistance groups, once fragmented, now operate with remarkable coordination. In the south and southeast, they have displayed impressive strategic acumen, making steady advances towards capital Naypyidaw. Their latest push across the Sittaung River valley and into the Pegu Yoma range brings them closer to the Mandalay-Naypyidaw-Yangon highway, one of Myanmar's two critical arteries.

Meanwhile, in the north and northeast, groups have seized control of strategic chokepoints on the Pathein-Monywa highway, a route linking several key ordnance factories vital to the Tatmadaw's war machine. With these supply lines choked, the junta's military position grows increasingly precarious. Resistance networks, particularly the Arakan Army and allied forces, now exercise control over regions that once sustained the Tatmadaw’s logistics.