International outcry over start of Myanmar military’s 2025-26 elections

The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), a network of current and former lawmakers from across Southeast Asia, and members of the European parliament have issued a joint statement rejecting the regime’s 2025-26 elections, which started on Dec. 28, with voting set to continue into January 2026.

The two human rights groups warned that the polls “could exacerbate the existing climate of violence and thus represent not progress but regression” and are designed to legitimize military rule nearly five years after a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, which ousted the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government led by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.

The two senior NLD leaders have been held in prison since 2021 and are currently serving lengthy prison sentences handed down by regime courts.

APHR reaffirmed its support for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Five-Point Consensus, which is a peace plan agreed to by regime leader Min Aung Hlaing in 2021 but not implemented upon his return to Myanmar.

China congratulated Myanmar on completing the first phase of the regime elections with voting taking place in 102 out of 330 townships nationwide on Dec. 28. Lin Jian, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said that Beijing sent an election monitoring team, which reported that voting had proceeded in a “generally stable and orderly manner.”

“We hope that the subsequent second and third phases of voting will also proceed smoothly,” he added, referring to the upcoming second and final rounds of voting on Jan. 11 and Jan. 25, 2026.