International response to start of Myanmar military’s 2025-26 elections

The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), an independent group of international human rights experts, urged the international community to reject the regime’s 2025–26 elections on Monday, claiming that it lacks any legitimacy as voting continues into January 2026 amid a civil war and humanitarian crisis exacerbated by the March 28 earthquake.

“The idea that junta leader Min Aung Hlaing is a nascent democrat is beyond absurd,” said Ben Lee, the SAC-M executive director. “His name has become a byword for atrocities—airstrikes, torture, sexual violence, even genocide. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court wants him arrested for alleged crimes against humanity.”

Regime media reported that eight countries sent election observers to monitor the polls for the first phase of voting on Dec. 28.

Vietnam and Cambodia were the only members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to dispatch observers to Myanmar. Russia, China, Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, and Nicaragua also sent officials to observe the polls.