The vote, which begins on December 28, is widely seen as a ploy to legitimize the ruling military junta.
Published October 28, 2025
Campaigning has begun in military-run Myanmar two months ahead of elections that are widely rejected at home and abroad as an apparent attempt to lend legitimacy to the military’s 2021 seizure of power.
The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) launched its election campaign on Tuesday with events in the capital Naypyidaw and the country’s largest city Yangon.
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Voting is scheduled to begin on December 28, but rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have dismissed it as a “phony”, and the European Commission has ruled out sending observers, saying it is neither free nor fair.
the opposition party was dissolved
Myanmar’s ruling government has touted the elections as a path to reconciliation in the war-torn country since it seized power in a 2021 coup and removed and jailed Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) won the previous two elections by a landslide.
But voting will not take place in one in seven parliamentary constituencies, many of which are battlegrounds, and dozens of opposition parties, including the NLD, will not participate after the military-appointed Federal Election Commission ordered their dissolution.
Meanwhile, many opposition groups, including armed resistance groups, have called for a boycott, saying they are trying to disrupt the election.
The campaign began a day after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the election could cause further instability in Myanmar, while diplomatic officials said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) would not send observers, a further blow to the junta’s push for international legitimacy.
Fifty-seven political parties have registered to contest the elections, but the USDP is expected to win the most seats in the absence of the NLD or a credible national opposition party.
Elections “mean nothing”
USDP campaign events in the capital and Yangon drew small crowds, but some expressed disinterest in the election.
“This election means nothing to me,” a 60-year-old man from Sittwe, Rakhine state, told AFP news agency. “This is not a real election and it looks like no one is supporting it.”
Another man, who was evacuated to Mandalay due to fighting, told authorities he was unlikely to vote. “We’re not really interested,” he said. “We just want to go home.”
