On Oct. 16, Myanmar’s election commission canceled upcoming elections in nine of 17 townships in conflict-torn Rakhine state. Many of the unaffected townships are held by the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), and the move tilts the electoral playing field in the party’s favor in the state where it needs it the most. On top of other violations of democratic norms, the decision further undermines the credibility of an election that the NLD was always going to win. The party of the civilian leader and onetime democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, which came to power in 2015, still retains broad support elsewhere in Myanmar.
But weeks ahead of the national vote on Nov. 8, the NLD government has excluded the Rohingya Muslim minority from voting or standing for election, censored rival political parties and critical websites, and obstructed Myanmar’s biggest election monitor. A new surge of COVID-19 in Myanmar has compounded these obstacles, restricting campaigning across the country—but particularly in Rakhine state and Yangon, the largest city—and leading the major opposition parties to request a delay to no avail. Yet despite the assault on democracy by the party that once represented it, Western countries have been almost completely silent.
