Myanmar’s military regime has announced elections will be held in three phases, starting on December 28 and concluding in January.
Two outcomes are certain: first, the military-aligned party will be recorded as winning and, second, the government in exile – the National Unity Government – will fade even further into the background.
In the close to five years since the military seized power in February 2021, the country has been engulfed in a civil war, with the military pitted against People’s Defence Forces and numerous ethnic armed organisations. Thousands of resistance protestors, fighters and politicians, including President Win Myint and the ever-popular leader Aung San Suu Kyi, remain imprisoned.
