Ghost town voting in second stage of Myanmar election | Election

reporter notes

Papun was once a bustling town with its own airport. With the seat currently vacant and fighting continuing between the military and rebels, Sunday’s election is meaningless.

The town of Papun was once a bustling regional center filled with banks, local government offices, and shops supplying the surrounding valley.

It also had its own airport, which was especially useful in remote areas of eastern Myanmar.

The ruling military junta announced that Mr. Papun will take part in the second phase of voting, when general elections resume this Sunday, following the first phase at the end of December.

The only problem is that Papun is actually a ghost town.

On the wall of the police station is a sign that kindly asks, “Can I help you?” In English. However, just inside the gate is a white skull on a red background, warning that there is a mine buried inside.

When Al Jazeera visited Papun a few weeks ago, there wasn’t a soul left in the town, and all businesses and homes had been burned, bombed, or buried in the jungle.

Some voting will take place inside a tactical command post about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the road. But anyone who wants to vote will have to overcome landmines, booby traps and about 800 government soldiers who have been under siege since 2024.

“The junta’s upcoming elections are a sham. It’s a staged sham election designed to maintain the power the junta has stolen,” said Tin Ou, commander of the People’s Defense Forces, one of the militant groups currently trying to remove government forces from the region.

And at least 3.5 million voters across Myanmar will be unable to vote because they have been forced to flee their homes due to fighting in the civil war.

Ay Tu Zar fled Pazunmyaung two months ago after his village was bombed by government jets. Today, she and her son Mo live in a community of 150 other displaced people on the banks of the Sittang River, making a living from what they get from the land. There are no relief agencies operating here that provide shelter or food.

“No, I won’t vote,” she told me, sitting in the bamboo hut she now calls home. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything. We live in a remote area, so we don’t know about the election.”

Myanmar’s most populous city, Yangon, is only a two-hour drive away, where security is good and the civil war feels far away. Many of the country’s urban areas voted in the first phase of the election on December 28th. After the second stage on Sunday, the third stage will take place on January 25 before the final results are announced.

But with military-backed parties being the only choice on the ballot paper, many voters simply do not show up in cities like Yangon, and local election officials told Al Jazeera that turnout could be as low as 35%, although official figures have not yet been released.

However, none of these problems appear to be bothering the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). They have already been named easy winners, winning 89 of the 102 lower-tier seats in the first phase, and look likely to emerge as winners when the results are announced later this month.

That should come as no surprise to the retired generals leading the party or to the rest of Myanmar.