All of this and the fact that large parts of the country are still under opposition control presents a huge logistical challenge for holding an election.
Voting is set to take place in three phases over the next month in 265 of the country’s 330 townships, with the rest deemed too unstable.
The next rounds of voting are scheduled for 11 and 25 January, with results expected around the end of the month.
There is not expected to be any voting in as much as one half of the country. Even in the townships that are voting, not all constituencies will go to the polls, making it difficult to forecast a possible turnout.
Six parties, including the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, are fielding candidates nationwide, while another 51 parties and independent candidates will contest only at the state or regional levels.
Some 40 parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy, which scored landslide victories in 2015 and 2020, have been banned. Suu Kyi and many of the party’s key leaders have been jailed under charges widely condemned as politically motivated, while others are in exile.
“By splitting the vote into phases, the authorities can adjust tactics if the results in the first phase do not go their way,” Htin Kyaw Aye, a spokesman of the election-monitoring group Spring Sprouts, told the news agency Myanmar Now.
