Tepid early turnout in Myanmar election as military touts stability

Under the shadow of civil war and questions over the poll’s credibility, voters in Myanmar cast their ballots in apparently low numbers in a general election on Sunday, the first since a military coup toppled the last civilian government in 2021.

The junta, having crushed pro-democracy protests after the coup and sparked a nationwide rebellion, said the three-phase vote would bring political stability to the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, despite international condemnation of the exercise.

But the United Nations, some Western countries and human rights groups have said the vote is not free, fair or credible, given that anti-junta political parties are out of the running and it is illegal to criticise the polls.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, deposed by the military months after her National League for Democracy won the last general election by a landslide in 2020, remains in detention, and the party she led to power has been dissolved.