The final round of voting in Myanmar’s election ended with a “sham”

Voting in Myanmar ended after the third and final phase of voting in an election widely considered a sham.

Due to the five-year civil war, many popular parties are barred from running in elections and large parts of the country are unable to vote.

The dominant party backed by the ruling military junta is expected to win a landslide victory.

The current regime has rejected international criticism of the election, insisting it was free and fair.

About a fifth of the country’s 330 townships, including the cities of Yangon and Mandalay, voted in the final stages.

Six political parties, including the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), fielded candidates across the country, while 51 other parties and independent candidates decided to contest at the state and regional levels.

The first two rounds were held on December 28 and January 11 respectively, with USDP achieving an overwhelming victory.

The party won just 6% of parliamentary seats in the last free election in 2020.

The BBC team observed that, as in previous rounds of this bizarre month-long election, voting at the Nyaungshwe polling station in Shan State was orderly and peaceful.

The site was chosen on a large campus, shaded by huge rain trees, and there were plenty of volunteers and officials to guide voters on where to go and how to make their choices using new, locally made electronic voting machines.

You’d be forgiven for believing this was a normal democratic exercise and not a hoax, as critics say.

However, polling day was preceded by a campaign period marked by fear, intimidation and a general feeling that nothing would change after an inevitable federal Democratic victory.

Everywhere the BBC team traveled in southern Shan State, we were followed and closely monitored by dozens of police and military officials, who were always polite but fiercely persistent.

Getting people to say anything about voting proved nearly impossible because they were so nervous about the possible repercussions.

The military-drafted constitution sets out the next steps after the final results are announced.

Parliament will meet in the next two months to elect a new president, with everyone expecting coup leader General Min Aung Hlaing to be elected.

This would be the same regime as plainclothes.

But then he would have to relinquish command of the armed forces.

His successor will certainly be a loyalist, but his control over the military will inevitably become less secure, and it’s no secret that many other senior officers don’t believe he’s doing a good job leading the country.

As voices grow in politics, there is likely to be a wider debate within the government about the direction Myanmar should now take, and the possibility of taking the first steps toward ending the civil war (which is still far away).

The military junta took control of Myanmar in a 2021 coup that ousted the elected civilian government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

She remains detained and, like many other opposition groups, her National League for Democracy has officially been dissolved.

The military has been battling armed resistance groups opposed to the coup and ethnic armies with their own militias.

It lost control of much of the country in a series of major setbacks but regained territory this year with support from China and Russia.

The civil war has killed thousands and displaced millions, devastated the economy and left a humanitarian vacuum.

The devastating earthquake in March and international funding cuts made the situation worse.