Myanmar is going to the polls in a vote broadly rejected as a sham, with key opposition groups dissolved, many of their leaders imprisoned and a significant portion of the country unlikely to vote because of an continuing internal conflict.
The ruling junta is conducting a staggered election nearly half a decade after it took control in a coup, which sparked massive protests and spiralled into a devastating conflict.
Observers say the junta, with backing from Beijing, is seeking to legitimise and entrench its power as it seeks a way out of the devastating stalemate.
"There are no conditions for the practice of the freedoms of free speech, assembly or peaceful assembly," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said.
Over two hundred people have been prosecuted for interfering with or opposing the polls under a recently enacted legislation which carries severe punishments, including the possibility of execution.
Director Mike Tee, actor Kyaw Win Htut and comedian Ohn Daing were among the well-known individuals convicted under the law, which was enacted in July. They were each handed a seven-year jail term after criticising a film endorsing the elections.
Civilians are "being coerced from all sides," Mr Türk said in a statement, adding that armed rebel groups have issued their own threats asking people to shun the polls.
The military has been fighting on multiple battlefields, against both armed resistance groups who oppose the coup, as well as ethnic armed organisations which have their own militias. It lost control of vast areas of the country in a string of defeats, but clawed back territory this year following relentless airstrikes made possible through 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.
The ballot is set to take place in three phases over the next month in two hundred and seventy-four of the country's 330 townships, with the rest 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, not all constituencies will go to the polls, making it difficult to predict a likely turnout.
A handful of parties, including the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, are running nominees nationwide, while dozens more parties and non-aligned contenders will contest only at the local levels.
Approximately forty groups, including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy, which achieved landslide victories in 2015 and 2020, have been dissolved. Suu Kyi and a number of the party's key leaders have been jailed under charges broadly viewed as fabricated, while others are in exile.
"Through dividing the vote into phases, the authorities can change their approach if the results in the initial round do not go their way," noted Htin Kyaw Aye, a spokesman of the election-monitoring group Spring Sprouts.
Western governments, including the United Kingdom and the European Parliament, have rejected the vote as a pretence, while regional bloc Asean has called for negotiations to precede any election.
The Myanmar regime has rejected criticism of the polls, maintaining that it aims to "return [the country] to a multi-party democratic system".
"The election is being held for Myanmar. It is being held for the citizens 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 warned earlier this week that those who refuse to vote are turning their back on "the path to democracy".
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