Voting centers open in Myanmar for an election without pro-democracy opposition

Rangoon.- Citizens of Myanmar began voting this Sunday in the first general elections since the military coup of February 2021, elections in which the leaders of the pro-democracy opposition, imprisoned or exiled since the coup, are not participating. Polling stations began to open their doors around 6:00 local time (10:30 GMT on Saturday) in the 102 municipalities called to the polls for the first phase of these elections, which will be followed by two more election days on January 11 and 25. In Yangon, the country's most populous city, EFE observed a trickle of voters at two centers, where the first hour of voting passed without incident.

The Elections in Burma

The military junta, which has held power since the coup, did not report any security incidents surrounding the opening of the centers at the start of these elections without real opposition, although it has reinforced the police deployment around some schools that function as polling stations. It is still unknown whether the Electoral Commission, led by people close to the junta, will announce partial results after the voting ends at 4:00 p.m. (8:30 GMT).

At least 56 of the country's 330 municipalities have been excluded from the elections because they are territories not controlled by the Army, which disputes other locations with greater or lesser advantage amid the armed conflict with ethnic guerrillas and pro-democracy groups.

Military coup

On the other hand, of the at least 4.3 million Burmese citizens residing abroad, less than 6,000 are eligible to vote in the elections.

The coup, rejected by the West and the United Nations, ended an emerging democracy in the Southeast Asian nation. Following the coup, the military junta of Burma outlawed the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that swept the 2015 and 2020 elections, and its leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has been in prison since the coup.