January 2, 2026
JAKARTA – This week marks Myanmar’s first so-called “general election” since the 2021 military coup, an exercise staged under the shadow of civil war, mass displacement and pervasive repression. The junta promotes the election as a route back to democratic rule. In reality, it is the opposite: a carefully engineered spectacle designed to launder authoritarian power through the language and imagery of democracy.
The 2025–2026 polls are being conducted in three staggered phases. This format reflects not administrative innovation, but the inability of the junta to control national territory.
Of Myanmar’s 330 townships, the first phase on Sunday saw voting in only 102. The second, on Jan. 11, 2026, will be held in 100 townships, and the third round, slated for Jan. 25, is expected to reach 63. Nine townships remain without a scheduled date, and 56 have been cancelled entirely for “security reasons”, a euphemism for ongoing conflict or territorial loss. In many areas, it is simply impossible to establish polling stations because the junta no longer governs there.
The political field has been systematically engineered to guarantee a predetermined outcome. In January 2023, the junta introduced a new Political Parties Registration Law, requiring all parties to re-register under criteria designed to exclude major opponents. In March 2023, the government dissolved 40 parties, including the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won approximately 82 percent of parliamentary seats in the 2020 election.
Only six parties are permitted to field candidates nationwide, including the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the National Unity Party, the People’s Pioneer Party, the Shan and Nationalities Democratic Party, the People’s Party and the Myanmar Farmer’s Development Party. Most are limited to local races, leaving the USDP with little more than symbolic competition. Under these conditions, uncertainty is impossible. The outcome is not contested, it is arranged.
There should be no confusion. Where ballots appear, they do not confer legitimacy. This is authoritarian consolidation masquerading as an election. The junta is not holding elections where it should, but only where it can. Participation is determined not by citizenship but by military reach. Any vote held in such an environment reflects the collapse of state legitimacy, not its renewal.
The space for dissent has been violently constricted. Media reports indicate that more than 200 people have been charged for disrupting or opposing the polls under a new law that carries severe penalties, including the death sentence. Young people have been jailed for anti-election posters; journalists face intimidation; civil servants are pressured to participate. To abstain is dangerous; to criticize is criminal.
Violence accompanied the first round of voting. Explosions and air strikes were reported across multiple regions. In the Mandalay area, a rocket attack injured three people; in Myawaddy, near the Thai border, detonations destroyed homes, killed a child and left others hospitalized. Soldiers have been deployed to “secure” polling stations, a move that resembles the systematization of control rather than public safety.
Behind every photograph of ballot boxes are communities living with grief, terror and exhaustion. People from Myanmar have told me, “This election is just for show. It won’t change anything.” This is not cynicism; it is clarity. They understand that an election held under air strikes, arrests and fear cannot express the people’s will. Myanmar’s youth in exile describe the polls as a “comedy show”, a cruel parody of democratic aspiration.
Yet, some governments in the region may still be tempted to treat these polls as progress. They must resist that temptation. Stability without justice is not peace; it is the normalization of oppression. To recognize this performance as legitimate would reward violence as a path to power and signal that democracy in Southeast Asia is optional, a matter of convenience rather than conviction.
External actors, especially China, have shaped battlefield dynamics through pressure in Lashio and back-channel negotiations. While these maneuvers may shift leverage, they have not delivered safety or dignity to civilians. The claim that these elections are a “path to peace” is fiction. For ordinary people, it is simply the next chapter in a five-year catastrophe.
ASEAN must uphold its own principles. The Charter affirms respect for human dignity and democratic norms; Vision 2045 promises a people-centered, rights-based community. The bloc must state the truth plainly: these elections cannot be recognized as the will of the people. That is not interference, it is integrity. Silence or congratulations would erode ASEAN’s credibility and betray its own norms.
This moment demands a reorientation of engagement. ASEAN must deepen diplomatic contact not with those who seized power by force, but with those who represent Myanmar’s democratic aspirations. Humanitarian assistance must expand, not as an act of charity, but as an affirmation of dignity, enabling displaced communities to retain agency over their futures rather than becoming permanent victims of geopolitical paralysis.
To ASEAN leaders: choose courage over complacency, principle over convenience, people over power. Recognition must be earned through processes that empower citizens, not spectacles designed to legitimize military rule. The people of Myanmar have paid an unbearable price for democratic hope, thousands killed, tens of thousands detained, millions displaced. They deserve more than to be props in a performance; they deserve to be heard.
As an Indonesian, I appeal specifically to the government of President Prabowo Subianto to stand with the people of Myanmar by refusing to legitimize this sham election. Let us lead not by claiming authority, but by demonstrating integrity, by showing that democracy in Southeast Asia is a shared commitment, not a slogan. Indonesia has shown before that democracy is not accidental, it is chosen, defended and renewed. We must choose it again now.
Democratic norms must be treated as the foundation of regional legitimacy, not as ornaments to be worn when convenient. If ASEAN is to have a future worthy of its promises, it must begin by honoring them in Myanmar. The credibility of our region, and the possibility of a democratic Myanmar, depend on that choice.
The writer is a former representative of Indonesia to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (2019-2024).