AP :
Myanmar will hold nationwide elections beginning Dec. 28, setting a date for polls that have been denounced as a sham to normalize the army’s 2021 seizure of power even as much of the country is wracked by civil war.
It is unclear how voting can take place when the military government is believed to control less than half the country, with the rest held by pro-democracy resistance fighters or ethnic minority rebels.
All of Myanmar’s 330 townships have been designated as constituencies for the election, the Union Election Commission said previously. Nearly 60 parties, including the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, have registered to run, according to the commission.
The commission announced the start date Monday and said the elections will be conducted in phases and a full schedule will be released soon.
Several opposition organizations, including armed resistance groups, have said they will try to derail the election.
The military government enacted an election law last month that carries a potential death penalty for anyone who opposes or disrupts the elections.
Critics have already said the military-planned election will be neither free nor fair because there is no free media and most of the leaders of Aung San Suu Kyi’s dissolved National League for Democracy party have been arrested.
