Myanmar is going to the polls in a vote broadly rejected as a sham, with key opposition groups dissolved, numerous figures imprisoned and as much as half of the country unlikely to vote because of an continuing internal conflict.
The military government is conducting a staggered election nearly five years after it seized power in a takeover, which ignited massive protests and escalated into a devastating conflict.
Observers say the military regime, with backing from Beijing, is attempting to validate and entrench its power as it seeks a way out of the costly stalemate.
"There are no conditions for the exercise of the freedoms of free speech, assembly or peaceful assembly," the United Nations' top human rights official Volker Türk said.
Over two hundred people have been charged for disrupting or criticising the polls under a recently enacted legislation which imposes severe punishments, including the possibility of execution.
Director Mike Tee, performer Kyaw Win Htut and comedian Ohn Daing were among the well-known individuals found guilty under the law, which was enacted in July. They were each handed a prison sentence of seven years after speaking out against a promotional video promoting the elections.
Civilians are "facing pressure from all sides," Mr Türk noted in a statement, adding that resistance forces have issued their own threats urging people to shun the polls.
The army has been fighting on multiple battlefields, against both pro-democracy fighters who reject the coup, as well as ethnic armed organisations which have their own militias. It ceded territory of large parts of the country in a string of defeats, but clawed back territory this year after relentless airstrikes enabled by support from China and Russia.
All of this and the fact that large parts of the country are still under rebel administration presents a massive logistical challenge for conducting an election.
Voting is set to take place in three rounds over the coming weeks in two hundred and seventy-four of the country's 330 townships, with the remainder deemed too unstable. Results are expected by late January.
There is not expected to be any voting in up to fifty percent of the country. Even in the townships that are voting, some districts will hold elections, making it difficult to predict a possible turnout.
A handful of parties, including the junta-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party, are running nominees nationwide, while dozens more parties and independent candidates will contest only at the state or regional levels.
Approximately forty groups, including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy, which scored decisive wins in 2015 and 2020, have been banned. Suu Kyi and a number of the party's key leaders have been imprisoned under charges widely condemned as politically motivated, while others are in hiding abroad.
"By splitting the vote into phases, the junta can change their approach if the results in the initial round do not go their way," commented Htin Kyaw Aye, a representative of the election-monitoring group Spring Sprouts.
Nations in the West, including the United Kingdom and the EU legislature, have dismissed the vote as a sham, while neighbouring group Asean has urged negotiations to precede any election.
The Myanmar regime has dismissed criticism of the polls, maintaining that it aims to "return [the country] to a democracy with multiple parties".
"The election is being held for Myanmar. It is being held for the people of this country. It is not being held for the outside world," a military representative stated at a news conference last week.
Military leader Min Aung Hlaing cautioned earlier this week that those who choose not to participate are turning their back on "the path to democracy".
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