Myanmar's junta compels people to vote without hope

Sara Perria speaks to voters in Yangon and Mandalay who are being forced to support only parties vetted by the military

- SARA PERRIA

As Myanmar went to the polls yesterday in the first of three phases in a tightly controlled election, brightly coloured campaign posters loomed over families with children still hacking a living from the rubble of buildings destroyed in Mandalay's devastating earthquake nine months ago.

People here in Mandalay and in the commercial capital Yangon expressed a mix of anger and resignation over this so-called democratic exercise, in stark contrast to the enthusiasm seen in the votes of 2020 and 2015, when Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy defeated the military's proxy party and its allies by a landslide.

Bulldozers threw up clouds of dust over streets packed with traffic and people, as well as the billboards advertising the few parties vetted by the junta and allowed to stand in the polls, the first since the generals ousted Ms Suu Kyi's elected government in a coup nearly five years ago.

The earthquake killed thousands of people and propelled Myanmar back onto the international stage, as many countries contributed to the regime's relief efforts. But if the junta thought that spelled its reintegration into the global fold then it was mistaken; many of those same countries, as well as the resistance forces across Myanmar, have denounced these elections as far from free and fair in the midst of civil war.