Myanmar’s military junta is once again presenting elections as a solution to national collapse. More than three years after the February 2021 coup, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s regime claims that a carefully staged vote will restore political order, revive the economy, and reestablish international legitimacy. Yet this narrative collapses under even minimal scrutiny. Far from offering a pathway out of crisis, a junta-run election risks deepening Myanmar’s civil war, institutionalizing state fragmentation, and exposing the profound failure of ASEAN’s approach to the country’s implosion.

Myanmar today is not a post-crisis state preparing for democratic renewal. It is a country in the midst of one of the most severe internal conflicts in Southeast Asia in decades. Since the coup, violence has spread far beyond traditional ethnic borderlands into central Myanmar, engulfing regions that were once firmly under military control. According to UN estimates, more than 3 million people are now internally displaced – a figure that has surged dramatically since mid-2023 as coordinated resistance offensives and ethnic armed organization (EAO) advances have accelerated. Entire townships have been depopulated, civilian infrastructure deliberately targeted, and humanitarian access routinely obstructed by the military.

Economically, the country has experienced near freefall. Myanmar’s economy has contracted by an estimated 18 to 20 percent since the coup, reversing a decade of fragile growth. The kyat has lost over 60 percent of its value, driving inflation, eroding wages, and wiping out household savings. Food insecurity has expanded rapidly, while the banking system remains crippled by capital controls and public distrust. Under these conditions, the notion that an election could stabilize the country borders on the absurd.

More fundamentally, the junta no longer controls........

© Blitz