Myanmar: Neither Free Nor Fair - A panel unpacks Myanmar’s staged election:

Insight Myanmar

“I don’t believe there will be any change after this sham election, because the people are already the same,” says Brang Min, a Kachin State civil society organizer and student activist working with the Kachin State Civil Movement, about the junta-sponsored election, speaking on the Insight Myanmar Podcast.

He is joined in the conversation by two other guests: Thinzar Shunlei Yi and Aung Moe Zaw. Thinzar Shunlei Yi (who shared her background in a previous episode) is a leading organizer and deputy director of the Anti-Sham Election Campaign Committee representing the General Strike movement, while Aung Moe Zaw is a veteran democracy activist and senior figure associated with the Democratic Party for a New Society and the anti-sham election campaign. All three speak from different generational, geographic, and organizational positions, yet converge on a shared assessment: the military’s planned 2025 elections are not a pathway back to democracy but a continuation of authoritarian rule under a new façade.

Brang Min situates his perspective in Kachin State, where he was born and raised and where ongoing armed conflict has shaped everyday life. He explains that his organization, formed after the 2021 coup, focuses on democracy, federalism, and environmental justice. For him, the election question cannot be separated from lived realities on the ground. In Kachin State, communities face airstrikes, artillery attacks, displacement, and internet blackouts. Against this backdrop, elections appear abstract and irrelevant to survival. He recalls voting in the 2020 election with hope that elected representatives would improve Kachin State’s future, only to see that expectation collapse after the coup. That experience informs his conviction that the current election is “fake,” designed not to reflect popular will but to extend military power and manufacture legitimacy.

Thinzar Shunlei Yi frames the discussion through the organization she directs, which emerged from the General Strike movement in response to the coup. She outlines how the military dismantled and rebuilt the Union Election Commission (UEC) immediately after seizing power in February 2021, arresting previous officials and installing a military-controlled body. From her perspective, this early move revealed long-term intent: the junta never treated elections as a genuine democratic mechanism, but as a tool to reset its authority after repression. She emphasizes that although the military promised elections earlier, delays only reflected resistance on the ground, not a change in strategy. What distinguishes the current moment, she argues, is that revolutionary forces and much of the population have rejected the 2008 constitution altogether, viewing it as both illegitimate in origin and nullified by the military’s own violations of it.

Aung Moe Zaw analyzes the present crisis from within a much longer political history. Drawing on decades of activism dating back to the late 1980s, he recalls repeated cycles of coups, protests, arrests, and controlled elections. From his perspective, elections in Myanmar have mainly been about power. He argues that whenever civilian political forces have threatened military dominance—most notably the National League for Democracy—the military has intervened to exclude them, manipulate the system, or overturn results. He stresses that the current legal framework governing political parties functions more like a policing mechanism than an electoral administration. Parties must seek permission for nearly every activity, from opening offices to organizing members, making genuine political competition impossible.

Across the conversation, all three describe structural barriers deliberately erected to marginalize pro-democracy actors. Aung Moe Zaw explains that many established parties refuse to register under the junta’s election laws, not because they have ceased to exist politically, but because registration itself would imply recognition of military authority. The Union Election Commission, as he describes it, monitors and restricts parties so tightly that independent organizing becomes unworkable. In this environment, elections become a closed system where participation is limited to actors already aligned with the regime.

CATCH THE PODCAST

Read more and listen to the Insight Myanmar Podcast here:

https://insightmyanmar.org/complete-shows/2025/12/27/episode-457-neither-free-nor-fair