A voter dips her finger in an ink bottle after casting ballot a polling station during the third phase of general election January 25, 2026, in Yangon, Myanmar. THEIN ZAW / AP
Myanmar opened the final round of its month-long election on Sunday, January 25, with the dominant pro-military party on course for a landslide in a junta-run vote critics say will prolong the army's grip on power. The country has a long history of military rule, but the generals took a back seat for a decade of civilian-led reforms. That ended in a 2021 military coup when democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi was detained, civil war broke out, and the country descended into a humanitarian crisis.
The election's third and final phase opened in dozens of constituencies across the country at 6 am on Sunday, just a week shy of the coup's five-year anniversary. AFP journalists saw polling open in the second city of Mandalay and in Yangon's Hlaingthaya township – the site of a bloody crackdown on anti-coup protests five years ago. The military has pledged that the vote will return power to the people, but it is not being held in wide areas of the country carved out by rebel groups.
With Suu Kyi sidelined and her hugely popular party dissolved, democracy advocates say the ballot is stacked with military allies. "I don't expect anything from this election," a 34-year-old Yangon resident told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons. "I think things will just keep dragging on."
