Junta chief wants ‘free and fair election regardless of the situation’

24 Jan 2023

DMG Newsroom
24 January 2023, Sittwe

Facing widespread scepticism, Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has promised an election this year in which all citizens can cast votes freely, without threats or coercion.

“As we exercise a multi-party democracy system, we must try to hold a free and fair election regardless of the situation, and it is important that people can cast votes across the country,” the regime leader said on Monday at a meeting on election law in the administrative capital Naypyidaw.

Arakanese politician U Pe Than was among those casting doubt on the integrity of the planned poll, however.

“No matter how free he says the election will be, it is widely regarded as a sham at home and abroad,” he said.

Meanwhile, fighting between the military and anti-junta forces continues across large swaths of the country, including resistance attacks on local election offices and teams involved in updating voter lists.

“We have neither trust nor interest in the poll,” said a resident of Rathedaung Township’s Yay Soe Chaung Village, who was forced to flee previous fighting between the military and Arakan Army and is living temporarily in the Arakan State capital Sittwe. “They have conducted a census in our displacement camp regarding the voter list.”

Myanmar’s Union Election Commission (UEC) has approved the introduction of a proportional representation (PR) system in the planned poll to replace the first-past-the-post (FPTP) format that was used in the previous three general elections held under the 2008 Constitution. 

The adoption of PR is widely expected to guarantee the junta proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) the seats it needs to appoint the president, given the military’s constitutionally guaranteed allotment of 25 percent of the parliamentary seats. 

The FPTP system was used in the 2010, 2015 and 2020 general elections, as well as in three by-elections.