Myanmar’s military leaders say elections will mark a return to civilian rule. But with half the country outside their control and armed resistance still raging, is this a transition or just a tactical reset?
Myanmar’s military rulers officially ended the country’s state of emergency in July, more than four years after it was imposed following the 2021 coup.
Power has been transferred to an interim civilian government, with national elections scheduled for December 28.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is currently acting president and also serves as the chief of the armed forces, which has ruled the country for most of its post-independence history.
The military has been battling with resistance groups and ethnic armed organizations since the coup. A running tally of attacks, explosions and air strikes kept by London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies shows there has been no letup in the fighting over the past year.
Myanmar women key in resistance
The military regime’s recent moves to transition to a new government are “purely symbolic,” said David Mathieson, an independent Myanmar analyst based in Thailand. He argues that “none of this is real.”
“It’s the military basically pretending to have some kind of transition process, but ultimately, it’s just going to be a continuation of military rule, just with a different disguise,” he told DW.
“They think, if holding these elections actually divides the armed opposition and divides various political groupings, then that’s good.
“I think there is partly a strategy of, ‘let’s hold this ridiculous election with the stated aim of actually unifying the country’ … but what they’re hoping [for] is further division.”
With the regime in control of less than half the country, and over 3.5 million people now displaced by the fighting, international monitors have slammed the announced polls as a charade.
Analysts say the election will likely see Min Aung Hlaing maintain his power over any new government, either as president, military leader or in some new office where he will consolidate control.
Military leaders under pressure
Since the coup, the generals had promised to hold elections and hand over to a civilian government, but they kept pushing the polls back.
However, deteriorating economy and the mounting frustration of neighboring countries suffering the civil war’s spillover have increased pressure on the junta to finally make good on those plans, says Chim Lee, a China and Myanmar analyst for the British-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which is associated with the London-based Economist magazine.
“Without some sort of legitimacy at the international level, it is very hard for Myanmar to attract investment,” he said. “Its economy has practically collapsed with the exit of the textile manufacturers and the depletion of gas fields, so much of that points to growing economic pressure.”
The generals are now touting the polls as a way to end the conflict and have offered cash rewards to opposition fighters willing to lay down their arms ahead of the vote.
Lee says they hope the fighting will wane if the elections can split some of the alliances the resistance groups and ethnic organizations have forged since the coup. That, in turn, Lee adds, could convince foreign investors to start coming back.
“This is all very ideal, of course. Whether that can actually happen is far from certain,” he noted.
Lee and other analysts warn that the elections could even backfire on the junta by ramping up the fighting if armed groups try to block the polls in their enclaves. Some groups have already vowed to reject the results.
China’s strategic interests
China has continued urging Myanmar’s generals to hold the elections and repeatedly offered its support.
Yun Sun, who heads the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based foreign policy think tank, says Beijing has grown convinced that only elections, however cosmetic, have any hope of pulling Myanmar out of its violent morass.
Lee says that, in turn, would help China secure its substantial economic and strategic interests in Myanmar. That includes a partly realized, multibillion-dollar corridor cutting across the country, giving China’s landlocked regions access to the Indian Ocean.
Having eagerly pushed for the elections, China is expected to endorse the results and whatever government that comes out of them — as is Russia.
Lee and Mathieson suggested that Western countries, which have put heavy sanctions on Myanmar since the coup and loudly condemned the military, would likely reject the polls.
But some of Myanmar’s neighbors might join Beijing and Moscow in welcoming the outcome as well, including India, Bangladesh and some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The 10-country bloc — which includes Myanmar — is split over how to engage with the military regime running the country and has not taken a unified stance on the coming polls.
Some members like Indonesia and Malaysia have been tough on the regime. Others, especially Thailand, have been more open to bringing Myanmar back into the fold, after the bloc decided in 2022 to ban the country’s senior generals from attending its top-level meetings.
India, Thailand and Bangladesh have all seen waves of refugees from Myanmar spill over their frontiers and border trade suffer in recent years.
Like China, they will be hoping that even a deeply flawed transition to a new-look government will restore some order, while mostly putting any concerns about free and fair elections aside, said Lee.
“All of these considerations really prompt the governments right next to Myanmar to be more pragmatic in their approach,” he said.
