Voters in Myanmar cast ballots on January 11 in the second stage of an election process that has confirmed the ruling junta's ability to engineer political outcomes through structural exclusion rather than popular consent. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) secured approximately 87 percent of contested lower house seats in the December 28 first phase, establishing a pattern of predetermined results across the staggered three-phase process that will conclude January 25.
The junta's official narrative emphasizes improved organization and increased turnout compared to the initial round, a messaging shift that reveals the primary audience for this exercise. This is not a referendum on the military's rule—such legitimacy is unattainable given the ongoing civil war and systematic repression—but a carefully constructed artifact for regional consumption. Myanmar's election gambit targets regional investors, not voters, providing a formal pretext for economic re-engagement that key partners require to justify normalized relations.
The mechanics of manufactured consent
The electoral architecture ensures the predetermined outcome through multiple layers of control. The National League for Democracy, which won approximately 90 percent of seats in the 2020 election, remains disbanded. Its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, serves a 27-year prison sentence among more than 22,000 political detainees. New legislation introduced ahead of the election imposes ten-year prison terms for criticizing the process, with over 330 individuals already charged under these provisions.
The USDP's capture of 102 of 116 contested lower house seats in the first phase represents not electoral competition but institutional consolidation. The few parties participating alongside the USDP lack independent organizational capacity or popular base, serving primarily to populate a multi-party facade. The 2008 constitution, drafted under previous military rule, already reserves 25 percent of parliamentary seats for serving officers, creating an effective veto over constitutional amendments regardless of civilian electoral outcomes.
This vote occurs within a geographically hollowed-out state. Sixty-five townships remain entirely excluded from the three-phase process due to active conflict between the military and ethnic armed organizations alongside People's Defense Forces. This formal disenfranchisement of millions in resistance-controlled areas represents a tacit admission of the junta's territorial limitations. The eligible electorate has contracted by 35 percent compared to 2020, with voting confined to zones where military control permits the performance of electoral rituals.
Members are reading: How the junta's election theater serves as infrastructure for regional economic re-engagement despite ongoing civil war.
Symbolic erasure and long-term consolidation
The inclusion of Kawhmu township in the second phase carries particular symbolic weight. This constituency, Aung San Suu Kyi's former parliamentary seat, represents the geographic locus of Myanmar's democratic moment. The USDP's anticipated victory there completes a political erasure, replacing elected representation with military-selected proxies in the physical space most associated with opposition to military rule.
The junta's endgame extends beyond this election cycle. By establishing a pseudo-civilian government through a procedurally complete electoral process, the military creates institutional continuity that outlasts individual leaders or specific administrations. This structure can absorb international criticism as "civilian government failures" while maintaining military control through constitutional mechanisms and the security apparatus. The 25 percent military bloc in parliament ensures permanent institutional presence regardless of future electoral outcomes, should the junta eventually permit less controlled contests.
The immediate consequence is a bifurcated Myanmar: zones where the electoral performance creates administrative structures for economic transactions, and excluded territories where military campaigns continue against resistance forces. This fragmented sovereignty model may prove more durable than attempts at total territorial control, allowing the regime to access external resources through the governed zones while containing rather than defeating opposition in peripheral areas. The election legitimizes this partition by formally acknowledging which territories participate in the state structure and which remain outside it.
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