Polls opened in Myanmar on Sunday kick-starting a controversial election the military junta says will return democratic rule, nearly five years after it seized power from an elected government, unleashing a brutal civil war it has yet to win.
The country’s most popular politician Aung San Suu Kyi is languishing in prison and its most successful political party has been dissolved. The ballot is dominated by parties perceived to be close to the military and hundreds have been arrested under a new law criminalizing obstruction, disruption and criticism of the poll.
And there are whole swaths of the country where voting will not take place, as the junta continues to battle a patchwork of ethnic rebels and pro-democracy fighters in the hilly borderlands and arid central plains.
A year ago, those groups inflicted a series of defeats on the military – with many opponents briefly dreaming the generals might be toppled, ending their decades-long dominance of the country’s politics and economy.
But this year junta troops – reinforced by tens of thousands of men drafted under a new conscription law and backed by new Chinese weaponry – have clawed back territory.
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