Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing has promised a general election in Myanmar next year.
He previously said an election would be held after a population census in October this year. He promised a poll while visiting junta staff and community representatives in Meiktila Township, Mandalay Region, on Saturday.
The junta’s five-point roadmap includes holding an election to hand power to the winning party but Min Aung Hlaing has repeatedly delayed any election because of instability across Myanmar.
At a cabinet meeting in July last year, Min Aung Hlaing suggested holding voting in territory controlled by the regime as large areas of Myanmar have been liberated.
He rejected the idea and said a general election would be held only after peace and stability were restored.
The regime leader recently admitted that his forces had lost ground after the fall of numerous towns in northern Shan State during the Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027 and 10 townships in Rakhine and Chin states to the Arakan Army, which continues to advance.
Since February, the regime introduced conscription, brought back former military personnel to active duty and rearmed militias to prop up an army seriously depleted by casualties and desertions.
In May, Min Aung Hlaing ordered all military personnel and police in eight regional commands into frontline duties.
The regime has lost half of Rakhine State and tensions are running high again in northern Shan State, despite a China-brokered ceasefire. The repeated defeats raise questions about how a census could be conducted by October, voter lists compiled or an election held.
After dissolving the National League for Democracy and refusing to accept its victory in the 2020 general election, the regime also amended the Political Parties Registration Law to favor the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party.
The international community, the civilian National Unity Government and revolutionary forces say any election held by the regime will be neither free nor fair.
