As Myanmar goes to the polls on Sunday in the first of three phases in a tightly controlled election, brightly coloured campaign posters loom 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 express 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.
