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United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday urged Myanmar’s junta to focus on increasing aid to its struggling people instead of holding an election, which he said would be neither free nor fair. Myanmar’s junta has been widely pilloried for pressing on with the election starting this December, while it continues to bomb civilians in a civil war that has killed thousands and displaced more than 3.5 million people. Guterres, who was in Kuala Lumpur for a summit between the UN and Asean – of which Myanmar is a member – said the focus should be on an immediate end to the four-year civil war. “I don’t think anybody believes that those elections will be free and fair,” he told reporters. “I don’t think anybody believes those elections will contribute to the solution of the problems of Myanmar.” The junta, led by Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, sees an election as a chance to reset after four years of grinding war and an opportunity to reclaim some legitimacy in the eyes of the international community for a government that comes from polls – even if it is inevitably stacked with military figures and proxies. Myanmar’s civil war stems from a 2021 coup by a military which was unhappy with being routed in an election a few months earlier. It has seen the country’s economy collapse as the junta struggles to regain control over most of its borderlands from pro-democracy rebels and ethnic militias. The coup also led to an unprecedented ban on Myanmar’s top leadership from attending any official meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including this week’s summit in Kuala Lumpur. The regional bloc, which is normally allergic to confrontation on matters involving each other’s domestic affairs, acted after the junta failed to implement five measures it agreed to in order to stop the conflict. Those include an immediate end to the violence, allowing aid in, the appointment of an Asean special envoy and a pathway to peace talks. Critics have piled pressure on Asean to stop what they call a “sham” election, given the junta’s lack of territorial control and the exclusion of tens of millions of people from voting as the military continues to bomb civilian areas. In a joint statement on Sunday, Asean’s leaders said any plan by the junta to hold a national election must make sure that it would be “free, fair, peaceful, transparent, inclusive and credible”. “We emphasise that the cessation of violence and inclusive political dialogue must precede elections,” the statement read, adding that Asean reaffirmed that a resolution of Myanmar’s civil war must continue to be guided by the five-point consensus. Guterres said he was “appalled” by what was happening in Myanmar, and urged all parties to support Asean’s push for an immediate end to the conflict. “The people of Myanmar are counting on our collective support. Let’s deliver it,” he said. The vortex of problems caused by Myanmar’s instability extends to surging drug production, illegal mining and forest burning with consequences for Laos and Thailand, and crucially, the explosion of scam centres inside lawless parts of Myanmar. There are also glaring practical problems with holding elections in a country lacerated by war. Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing had admitted earlier this month that polls could not be held in the whole country “due to various reasons” despite a pledge to make the contest “strong and competitive”. The Union Election Commission, appointed by the junta, in August said the first phase of the election would be held in 102 out of 330 townships – mostly in Yangon, Naypyidaw and other central military heartlands. But key allies China and, to a lesser degree, Russia have voiced support for the election, banking on the junta to regain its footing after four years of war that has seen the strategically crucial nation pitched into violence and chaos.
