Myanmar is going to the polls in a electoral process broadly rejected as a sham, with key opposition groups dissolved, many of their leaders imprisoned and as much as half of the country unlikely to vote because of an continuing internal conflict.
The military government is conducting a staggered election nearly five years after it seized power in a coup, which sparked massive protests and spiralled into a devastating conflict.
Analysts note the junta, with China's support, is attempting to validate and consolidate its power as it looks for a way out of the costly stalemate.
"The environment does not allow for the exercise of the rights of free speech, association or peaceful assembly," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said.
Over two hundred people have been charged for disrupting or opposing the polls under a new law which imposes severe punishments, including the possibility of execution.
Film director Mike Tee, actor Kyaw Win Htut and entertainer Ohn Daing were among the prominent figures convicted under the law, which was passed in July. They were each handed a prison sentence of seven years after speaking out against a film endorsing the elections.
Civilians are "being coerced from all sides," Mr Türk noted in a statement, adding that armed rebel groups have issued their own threats asking people to boycott the polls.
The military has been fighting on multiple battlefields, against both pro-democracy fighters who reject the coup, as well as ethnic armed organisations which have their own militias. It ceded territory of large parts of the country in a series of major setbacks, but clawed back territory this year following sustained aerial bombardment made possible through support from Beijing and Moscow.
All of this and the fact that large parts of the country are still under opposition control presents a huge logistical challenge for conducting an election.
The ballot is set to take place in three phases over the next month in 274 of the country's three hundred and thirty townships, with the rest deemed not secure enough. Outcomes 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, some districts will go to the polls, making it challenging to predict a possible turnout.
Six parties, including the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, are running nominees nationwide, while another 51 parties and independent candidates will compete only at the state or regional levels.
Approximately forty groups, including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy, which achieved decisive wins in 2015 and 2020, have been dissolved. Suu Kyi and a number of the party's key leaders have been imprisoned under charges broadly viewed as fabricated, while the rest are in exile.
"By splitting the vote into stages, the junta can adjust tactics 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.
Nations in the West, including the UK and the EU legislature, have dismissed the vote as a pretence, while neighbouring group Asean has called for political dialogue to come before any election.
The Myanmar regime has dismissed condemnation 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 people of this country. It is not intended for the outside world," a junta spokesman stated at a news conference last week.
Military leader Min Aung Hlaing cautioned earlier this week that those who refuse to vote are rejecting "the path to democracy".
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