Behind the ballot boxes, a military script unfolds
While international attention is distracted elsewhere, Myanmar advances under the radar. On December 28, 2025, the ruling junta’s political arm declared a “landslide” victory after a first round of legislative elections that were neither free nor fair. A democratic illusion staged by a regime that has never relinquished its grip on power since the 2021 coup.
Just hours after ballots were counted in handpicked constituencies, a senior member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) claimed they had secured 82 out of 102 seats in the lower house. The figures remain unofficial, pending validation by the Union Election Commission, a body operating under direct military oversight. Whether these “official” results will ever see daylight is another question entirely.
A triumph with no rivals
Myanmar’s former democratic force, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was dismantled post-coup. Its leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, remains detained and excluded from public life — and, of course, from the ballots. This wasn’t an election; it was a carefully choreographed ritual of power reaffirmation.
With opposition leaders imprisoned or in exile, the military ensured that Myanmar’s legislative elections were contested primarily by pro-junta candidates, in carefully selected areas far from the zones of ethnic resistance or civil unrest.
Condemnations, as predictable as they are ineffective
Western diplomats, international NGOs, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the vote — citing repression, intimidation, and an electorate stripped of meaningful choice. But these statements are largely ceremonial, and devoid of consequence.
Global media coverage, too, has been conspicuously muted. One might contrast the Western obsession with elections in Ukraine or Taiwan with the deafening silence over Myanmar — a country sliding quietly into a militarized electoral authoritarianism, absent from global priorities.
Beneath the surface: civil war and strategic silence
Despite the calm headlines, Myanmar remains fractured. A low-intensity civil war simmers in the background, notably in the Shan, Chin, and Karen regions where ethnic resistance movements operate outside junta control. Meanwhile, airspace closures, heightened security measures near pipelines and military bases, and subtle financial signals all betray a regime on edge.
But while the situation is far from stable, regional powers like China and India show little appetite for disruption, preferring a status quo that secures their trade routes and investment corridors. Western powers issue press releases; eastern ones invest.
Towards a normalized military regime
These elections were never about representation. They were about image — the legitimization of the junta through the theater of democracy. A few votes cast, a few foreign statements filed, and the machine continues. In the style of Russia or Iran, Myanmar adopts the electoral facade while keeping all real levers of power under military control.
Unless a drastic internal shift or a surprise military fracture occurs — both improbable — Myanmar is on track to entrench a durable form of post-coup authoritarianism, pacified by routine and sanctioned by silence.
