1st phase of Myanmar elections concludes

The polling stations in 102 townships opened at 6 am local time (2315GMT Saturday) and closed at 4 pm (0930GMT) as the first phase of the voting ended, according to Yangon-based Burmese news outlet Eleven Myanmar.

A total of 139 representatives from diplomatic organizations, including international election observers, were observing the election, Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry said, according to the news outlet.

The second and third phases will be held on Jan. 11 and Jan. 25, respectively.

The Union Election Commission has set up 21,517 polling stations across the country.

International observers included those from Russia, China, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nicaragua, India, and the Myanmar-Japan Association.

The elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) was ousted in 2021, and the country was plunged into more than four years of emergency rule. The NLD had won the November 2020 general elections.

While the 40 political parties were dissolved in 2023, including the NLD, at least six parties — with 4,963 candidates — are taking part in the vote.

At the regional levels, 57 parties are in the race. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party has put up some 1,018 candidates.

After casting his vote in the capital Naypyidaw, Burmese junta leader and acting President Min Aung Hlaing claimed the elections "are free and fair."

"It's organized by the Tatmadaw [military], we can't let our name be tarnished," he said, according to Mizzima News website.

When asked whether he would run for the presidency after the vote, he said he is a civil servant and could not comment or take any action.

However, he did not rule out a post-election role, saying that once parliament is convened, there is a constitutional process for the election of the president, and only after that stage would it be appropriate to speak.

Myanmar has a bicameral 664-seat parliament — 440 in the lower house and 224 in the upper house.

After the vote, the parliament has to convene within three months to choose speakers and elect a president – the head of state who picks the prime minister to form the government.

Since the coup, the Buddhist-majority nation of over 54 million people has been ravaged by internal ethnic conflict involving armed groups and the military, leaving thousands dead and over 3.5 million displaced.

The junta is yet to announce a date for the vote count and election results.

In a post on US social media company X, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, called on the international community to reject the legitimacy of the elections.

“The international community must strongly reject the military junta's theatre of the absurd ‘election’ that is underway right now in Myanmar. Nothing legitimate can emerge from this farcical, illegitimate exercise,” he said on Sunday.