SLOW START
Snaking queues of voters formed outside polling stations in the last election in 2020, which the military declared void a few months later when it ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and seized power.
But this time journalists and polling staff outnumbered early voters at a downtown station near the gleaming Sule Pagoda – the site of huge pro-democracy protests after the coup.
Among a trickle of early voters, 45-year-old Swe Maw dismissed international criticism.
“It’s not an important matter,” he said. “There are always people who like and dislike.”
In total, only around 100 people voted at the two stations during their first hour of operation, according to an AFP tally.
The run-up saw none of the feverish public rallies that Aung San Suu Kyi once commanded, and the junta has waged a withering pre-vote offensive to claw back territory.
“It is impossible for this election to be free and fair,” said Moe Moe Myint, who has spent the past two months “on the run” from junta air strikes.
“How can we support a junta-run election when this military has destroyed our lives?” she told AFP from a village in the central Mandalay region.
“We are homeless, hiding in jungles, and living between life and death,” said the 40-year-old.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has not responded to AFP requests for interview, but has consistently framed the polls as a path to reconciliation.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/myanmar-election-starts-junta-civil-war-5724961
