Officials in Myanmar complete preparations for first general election in five years; AP explains

Описание: (27 Dec 2025)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4626546

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Yangon, Myanmar - 27 December 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Jerry Harmer, The Associated Press:
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"Officials in Myanmar are finishing up their preparations for Sunday’s controversial election. At this Yangon polling station they are putting up voter lists, and putting up voting booths and setting up the voting machines that are being used for the very first time. The military seized power from the elected government almost five years ago, triggering an ongoing civil war. They say Sunday’s vote will return the country to a democratic system. The opposition say that’s absurd. The election they say allows for only one outcome: victory for a military-aligned party and the cementing of military control, albeit through a nominally civilian government. One thing to watch will be turn-out. In the previous two elections it was around 69%. The opposition has urged a boycott on Sunday. Will people support that call and stay home? Due to the ongoing civil war this process will happen in three tranches with many areas not involved because they are controlled by the military’s opponents."
2. Various of election officials carrying box for collecting votes into polling station in Yangon
3. Various of panel with parties and buttons for voting
4. Various of election officials setting up voting machines and booths
5. Workers putting up polling station sign
6. Workers at different polling station carrying board with voter lists
7. Various of Yangon official inspecting voting machine
8. Various of party candidates at a different polling station lining up to test voting machines
STORYLINE:
Officials in Myanmar are completing preparations for Sunday’s controversial election that they say will return the country to democracy but which their opponents have denounced as a sham.

Teams of election workers spent Saturday pinning up voter lists, erecting booths and installing voting machines at polling stations in those constituencies that will be contested in the first part of a multi-phase process.

The military seized power from the government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. They said her National League for Democracy had cheated its way to power in the election, held less than three months beforehand. They have offered scant evidence to support this.

The overthrow triggered a brutal, ongoing civil war.

The generals say this election will be clean and will restore a multi-party, democratic system.

Their opponents say this is ridiculous. The NLD, and many other parties, have been dissolved. Amael Vier, an analyst for the Asian Network for Free Elections, noted recently that Myanmar’s political parties that won 90% of the seats in 2020 no longer exist today.

Those opposed to the generals say the election has been designed to return one result, only: victory for a military-aligned party and the continuance of their rule, albeit in civilian clothes.

On Sunday, ballots will be cast in 102 of the country’s 330 townships. Further rounds will follow on Jan. 11 and Jan. 25, leaving 65 townships where there would be no voting because of the ongoing conflict with ethnic guerrilla groups and resistance forces.

AP Video by Tian Macleod Ji

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