Myanmar has been holding a multi-phase election under military rule, the first such national vote since the 2021 coup that removed the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The vote is being conducted in stages, with polling expanding to additional townships in subsequent rounds. Yet the facts reported by major news agencies and policy analysts point toward a central reality: this election is unfolding amid a civil war, widespread political repression, and the exclusion of major political actors. For the Rohingya, it arrives not as a political opening but as another reminder that Myanmar’s political order continues to be built without them.
Reporting by Reuters describes the second phase of voting as part of an election widely criticized as a tool to formalize or entrench junta rule. Reuters notes that the National League for Democracy has been dissolved, along with many parties opposing the military, leaving few legitimate competitors. In the first phase, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party won the overwhelming majority of contested seats. Reuters also reports that turnout was low, and that voters described fear around how their choices would be perceived, including concerns tied to coercion and social pressure. These details matter because elections do not only produce winners. They also signal the conditions of political life: who is allowed to participate, who is silenced, and which institutions define legitimacy.
Associated Press reporting similarly situates the election within a landscape of conflict and repression. AP describes voting as taking place while civil war continues, and notes that critics, including the United Nations’ special rapporteur on Myanmar, have called the election a “sham.” The reporting highlights how opposition groups and ethnic armies have opposed the polls, and how attacks were reported at polling sites. AP also points to large-scale political repression, citing figures for imprisonment since the coup and significant civilian deaths. These are not incidental details; they define the environment in which voting is supposed to represent public will.
The Atlantic Council’s analysis describes the election less as a democratic contest and more as a managed performance of legitimacy. That phrase captures the broader dilemma: an election can become a political technology, producing the appearance of consent while real power remains anchored in force. The Atlantic Council also frames the election as a test for neighboring countries: whether to engage with the junta in ways that could legitimize it. In other words, the vote is not only an internal political act. It is also a diplomatic instrument that can affect sanctions, recognition, and international posture.
A Council on Foreign Relations analysis makes the same point more directly: the junta-led election is neither free nor fair, but its consequences can still be serious. It places pressure on international actors who might be tempted to treat the existence of voting as evidence of political progress, regardless of the conditions under which that voting occurred. When an election is used to claim a transition or stability, it can become a hinge point for foreign policy decisions, even if it does not represent a genuine return to civilian rule.
Al Jazeera reporting explains the logic behind this skepticism, describing how critics view the election as a bid by Myanmar’s generals to legitimize military rule, nearly five years after the coup. The framing matters because it connects elections to war. When a state is fractured by conflict and political imprisonment, elections can become part of the conflict rather than a pathway out of it. This is not speculation; it is a description grounded in the way these outlets report the election’s intent and context.
Reuters’ longer reporting on the junta chief’s hold on power adds additional texture. It describes how Min Aung Hlaing, though not formally on the ballot, maintains influence through military dominance, elite deal-making, patronage, and fear. It reports that diplomatic support from China has helped reduce the junta’s isolation. This portrait reinforces the larger point: even if an electoral outcome produces new civilian faces, the underlying architecture of power may remain intact. If so, elections become a method of rearranging appearances without changing the foundations.
These dynamics matter for the Rohingya because Myanmar’s exclusionary political structures are not a side issue. They are the core of the Rohingya crisis. The Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder on the Rohingya crisis situates the displacement within decades of discrimination and escalating violence. For Rohingya refugees in exile, elections conducted under the same state structures that excluded them historically cannot easily be interpreted as a democratic reset. If the system remains built on exclusion, a vote can become a formalization of that exclusion.
This is why Rohingya perspectives on the election are particularly revealing. The Jakarta Post reported that stateless Rohingya in exile viewed the election through the lens of permanent denial. The very phrase “stateless Rohingya” captures what elections do and do not do. Voting presumes citizenship. It presumes belonging to a political community. Statelessness places a person outside that community. For Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh, or displaced elsewhere, the election becomes a political event that happens in a country that refuses to recognize them as part of its electorate, its citizenry, or its national story.
That disconnection is not merely symbolic. It has direct implications for accountability and return. Elections, even deeply flawed ones, can be used to claim a mandate. They can also be used to claim stability. If international actors treat elections as progress, they may reduce pressure on the junta. They may adjust asylum decisions, humanitarian aid postures, or sanctions regimes. Reuters reported that the United States terminated temporary legal status for Myanmar citizens and that the decision was linked, at least in part, to arguments that conditions were changing. Such moves show how elections can reverberate beyond Myanmar’s borders, influencing the treatment of displaced people.
The UN’s warnings about the election add another layer. AP’s coverage notes the UN special rapporteur’s condemnation, while other reporting and commentary captured the broader concern that elections held amid violence and mass imprisonment may worsen instability rather than reduce it. When a political process is conducted while armed conflict continues, the act of voting can become a contested claim to territory. It can provoke attacks, deepen polarization, or become a tool of coercion. The presence of attacks at polling sites, as AP reports, is consistent with that risk.
There is also the matter of scale. Reuters reports that Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis has displaced millions. That figure matters because displacement changes the electorate. War changes who is present to vote, who is missing, who has been forced into exile, and who lives under insurgent or military control. Elections held in select townships cannot represent a nation evenly when the nation itself is fractured geographically and politically.
This is where the Rohingya question becomes unavoidable. Myanmar’s political landscape has been shaped not only by the coup and civil war, but by the unresolved legacy of ethnic exclusion. If the Rohingya remain stateless, if they remain excluded from citizenship frameworks, and if their return remains unsafe, then the election does not mark the beginning of national reconciliation. It marks the continuation of a political order that has long treated some populations as outside the nation.
The Atlantic Council analysis makes a practical point about the region: neighboring nations face choices about engagement. That matters for Bangladesh, which hosts a vast Rohingya refugee population and repeatedly describes the crisis as a burden requiring international action. If regional and global actors interpret the election as a step toward normalization, pressure to prioritize Rohingya justice or citizenship restoration may diminish. The vote may be used diplomatically, even if it does not change conditions on the ground.
The key risk is not that the election will be misunderstood by experts. Many outlets and analysts already describe it in critical terms. The key risk is that the election will be used as a political excuse. Elections can serve as political cover for actors who want to resume business-like engagement while claiming they are supporting a transition. The CFR analysis emphasizes that the election is not free or fair, but its impact can still be deadly serious. This is the contradiction: illegitimate elections can still produce real consequences.
For the Rohingya, those consequences often take the form of stagnation. They remain in exile while Myanmar cycles through political theater. They remain dependent on humanitarian systems while political actors debate legitimacy. And they remain excluded from the idea of the polity itself. In this context, the election becomes less a democratic exercise and more a signal that Myanmar’s political imagination still does not include them.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s continued imprisonment, referenced across Reuters and AP reporting, is often treated as a symbol of Myanmar’s democratic reversal. But for the Rohingya, the question is broader. An election that excludes major parties and occurs under military dominance is one problem. An election that occurs in a state that has historically denied the Rohingya citizenship is another. Both can be true at once. The Rohingya crisis cannot be reduced to the coup. It predates it. And if the political system continues to exclude Rohingya rights, then even a superficial transition will not change their fate.
There is a temptation in international discourse to treat elections as thresholds: before elections, a country is authoritarian; after elections, it is on the road to democracy. The materials we have on Myanmar’s vote challenge that simplification. Voting can be staged, managed, and constrained. Participation can be coerced. Competition can be removed. And the international system can still be pressured to respond as if something meaningful occurred.
That is why language like “sham” becomes important. It is not merely an insult; it is a description of a process designed to perform legitimacy while maintaining control. It is a warning against confusing procedure with democracy. And it is a reminder that democracy is not only ballots. It is institutions, rights, and equal membership in the political community.
For the Rohingya, equal membership has been systematically denied. Their statelessness is not incidental. It is structural. And elections conducted under structures that exclude them cannot repair that harm.
This election, then, should be understood for what the sources suggest it is: a political maneuver conducted amid war, repression, and exclusion. It may be used to claim international recognition. It may be used to argue for easing sanctions. It may be used to suggest stability. But it does not, by itself, alter the conditions that made the Rohingya crisis possible.
If international actors are serious about stability, they cannot treat elections as an endpoint. They must treat them as a moment that requires sharper scrutiny, not softer pressure. They must ask not only whether votes were cast, but who was allowed to compete, who was imprisoned, which territories were excluded, and which communities remain outside citizenship. The Rohingya question is not a footnote to Myanmar’s political crisis. It is a test of whether Myanmar’s future can be built on inclusion rather than exclusion.
Until that changes, elections will remain what much of this reporting and analysis already suggests: a performance staged on top of unresolved violence, while some of the country’s most persecuted people watch from exile with no stake, no vote, and no promise of return.
References
- AP News, “Myanmar holds second round of voting in first general election since military takeover” (Jan 2026).
- Reuters, “Myanmar votes again in military’s lopsided election” (Jan 11, 2026).
- Reuters, “Pacts, patronage and fear: how Myanmar’s junta chief holds on to power” (Jan 13, 2026).
- Al Jazeera, “What’s happening in Myanmar’s civil war as military holds elections” (Dec 27, 2025).
- Al Jazeera, “Myanmar’s military holds second phase of elections amid civil war” (Jan 11, 2026).
- Atlantic Council, “Neither free nor fair: What Myanmar’s ‘sham’ elections mean for the country and its neighbors” (Jan 2026).
- CFR, “Myanmar’s Junta-Led Election Is Neither Free nor Fair” (blog analysis, Dec 2025/Jan 2026).
