UN expert urges rejection of election ‘fraud’

Elections being planned by Myanmar's ruling junta are a ploy to feign legitimacy and should be rejected by the international community as a "fraud", a UN expert said yesterday.

Myanmar has been engulfed in a brutal conflict since February 2021, when Min Aung Hlaing's military wrested power from the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The military has said it is planning to hold "a free and fair multi-party democracy general election" around the end of this year or in early 2026.

But Tom Andrews, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the rights situation in Myanmar, said the suggestion that truly democratic elections could be held in a junta-controlled Myanmar was laughable.

"They want to find an exit ramp to the international pressure."

"They want to find an exit ramp to the international pressure," he told journalists in Geneva.

Since the 2021 coup, trade sanctions have isolated Myanmar, making it increasingly dependent on China and Russia for economic and military support.

Min Aung Hlaing himself is under multiple global sanctions and the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor has sought an arrest warrant for him for alleged crimes against humanity committed against the country's Rohingya Muslims.

The junta, Andrews said, was "trying to create this mirage of an election exercise that will create a legitimate civilian government".

But "you cannot have an election when you imprison and torture and execute your opponents, when it is illegal to report the truth as a journalist, when it's illegal to speak out and criticise the junta," he said.

"It's really important that countries reject this idea of an election and not allow the military junta to attempt to get away with this fraud."

Andrews, who is an independent expert mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself, highlighted that more than 6,800 people had been killed in Myanmar since the military coup.

At the same time, he said, some 22,000 political prisoners are languishing behind bars -- "most of whom are guilty of only exercising their fundamental rights, including speaking out and participating in demonstrations opposing a brutal military junta".