YANGON: Myanmar’s junta acknowledged Monday its long-promised election would not be held in about one in seven national parliament constituencies, as it battles myriad rebel forces opposed to the poll.
A civil war has consumed Myanmar since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup, jailing democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi and deposing her civilian government.
The military has touted elections – due to start in phases on December 28 – as a path to reconciliation.
However monitors are slating the poll as a ploy to legitimize continuing military rule, while it is set to be boycotted by many ousted lawmakers and blocked by armed opposition groups in enclaves they control.
A notice by Myanmar’s Union Election Commission shared in state media said elections would not be held in 56 lower house constituencies and nine upper house constituencies.
The notice did not provide a specific reason for the cancelation but said “these constituencies have been deemed not conducive to holding free and fair elections.”
However, many of the territories are known battlegrounds or areas where the military has lost control to an array of pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic minority armed organizations defying its writ.
There are a total of 440 constituencies for Myanmar’s upper and lower houses, with the 65 canceled accounting for nearly 15 percent of the total.
They include the rebel-held ruby mining hub of Mogok, a majority of constituencies in western Rakhine state where the military has lost ground, and numerous areas the junta has been hammering with air strikes.
Myanmar’s junta lost swaths of territory when scattered opposition groups committed to a combined offensive starting in late 2023, but it has recently clawed back some ground with several victories.
Nonetheless, there have been other signs the poll will be limited in scope.
A census held last year in preparation for the election estimated it failed to collect data from 19 million of the country’s 51 million people, according to provisional findings.
“Significant security constraints” were cited as one reason for the shortfall.
Myanmar junta says no voting in dozens of constituencies
https://arab.news/rsvpm
Myanmar junta says no voting in dozens of constituencies
- A civil war has consumed Myanmar since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup
- The military has touted elections – due to start in phases on December 28 – as a path to reconciliation
Pakistani Taliban kill six soldiers in checkpoint attack
- Pakistan has faced a surge in militant attacks along its border regions since the Taliban authorities retook control in Kabul in 2021
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Pakistani Taliban militants stormed a security checkpoint in Pakistan’s northwestern border area with Afghanistan, killing six soldiers and wounding four others, a government official said Tuesday.
Pakistan has faced a surge in militant attacks along its border regions since the Taliban authorities retook control in Kabul in 2021.
It accuses Afghanistan of harboring the insurgents, a claim the Taliban government denies.
Late Monday, more than a dozen armed men attacked the checkpoint, leading to a heavy exchange of fire in Kurram, a tribal district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Six security personnel were martyred and four were injured, while two militants were also killed in the fighting,” the government official posted in Kurram, who was not authorized to speak to the media, told AFP on the condition of anonymity.
The Pakistani Taliban group, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has long been active in the region, and claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan accuses the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan of sheltering TTP militants and allowing them to launch cross-border attacks from there — a charge Kabul denies.
The border between the two countries has been closed since the clashes in October, though Pakistan said last week it would allow UN aid supplies to pass to Afghanistan soon.
The attack comes days after an exchange of gunfire and shelling between Afghan and Pakistani forces at a major border crossing that killed four civilians and one soldier, according to Afghanistan.
Each side accused the other of starting the fighting.
