Myanmar’s census more consequential than its election

Myanmar’s ongoing election has drawn predictable condemnation as a hollow exercise staged by a regime that seized power by force. Yet focusing only on the ballot risks missing the far more consequential political act now underway. The junta’s accelerated nationwide census will determine who exists politically in Myanmar’s future and who does not. For the Rohingya and for millions of displaced people across the country, being excluded from that count could lock in erasure long after the last vote is cast.

Elections come and go. Censuses endure. They shape representation, citizenship, land rights, public spending and the legal architecture of the state for decades. In Myanmar’s context of mass displacement and territorial fragmentation, a census conducted amid civil war is not a neutral technical exercise. It is an act of power. It defines whose presence is recognized and whose absence becomes permanent.

The authorities are pushing ahead with enumeration even as large swaths of the country remain outside their control and entire communities have been driven from their homes. According to UN estimates, more than 3 million people are internally displaced, while over a million Rohingya remain stranded in refugee camps in Bangladesh. A census that counts only those accessible to the state will inevitably undercount minorities, border populations and anyone forced to flee. That is not a statistical problem. It is a political outcome.

For the Rohingya, the stakes are existential. Their exclusion from Myanmar’s previous census helped pave the way for the stripping of their citizenship and the atrocities that followed. Repeating that exercise now, under conditions of even greater displacement and insecurity, risks hard-wiring statelessness into Myanmar’s postwar order. Once a population is absent from the official record, its claims to land, return and political rights become far easier to dismiss.

The authorities are pushing ahead with enumeration even as large swaths of the country remain outside their control

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

The census also exposes the fiction at the heart of the junta’s electoral project. A vote held on the basis of an incomplete and exclusionary population register cannot restore legitimacy. Instead, it formalizes a narrower polity aligned with military control and ethnic exclusion. The result will be a parliament that reflects neither the country’s demographic reality nor its political aspirations.

This matters beyond Myanmar’s borders. Bangladesh is already hosting one of the largest refugee populations in the world with dwindling international support. If the census renders Rohingya return legally and politically implausible, Dhaka will be left managing a permanent displacement crisis with growing security and social consequences. Aid fatigue, camp restrictions and renewed boat movements across the Bay of Bengal are not isolated phenomena. They are symptoms of a political failure upstream.

Inside Myanmar, the census will also shape relations with de facto authorities in contested areas. Ethnic armed organizations that control territory and provide services to local populations have little incentive to cooperate with an enumeration that excludes their constituents or denies their authority. Proceeding regardless will deepen fragmentation and normalize parallel systems of governance. Far from stabilizing the country, the census risks entrenching de facto partition.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Rakhine State. Control on the ground has shifted dramatically, with the Arakan Army consolidating power across much of the north. Yet neither the junta nor the Arakan Army has demonstrated a willingness to recognize Rohingya identity or rights. A census conducted under these conditions will reflect the preferences of those with guns, not the rights of those displaced. It will also shape any future negotiations by establishing a baseline that excludes the very people whose return is essential to lasting peace.

Regional actors cannot treat this as an internal administrative matter. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has long clung to procedural engagement with Myanmar, emphasizing dialogue and technical steps while avoiding political red lines. But silence on an exclusionary census is not neutrality. It is acquiescence. By accepting the process as a prerequisite for elections, ASEAN risks legitimizing outcomes that will perpetuate displacement and instability across Southeast Asia.

A census conducted under these conditions will reflect the preferences of those with guns, not the rights of those displaced

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

The international community bears responsibility as well. Years of rhetorical support for repatriation have not been matched by a strategy to secure political inclusion. Too often, humanitarian assistance has substituted for diplomacy, while accountability has been deferred until an elusive transition. A census that erases the Rohingya would foreclose both return and justice, transforming temporary displacement into a permanent condition by default.

There is still time to act. International actors should make clear that census data produced under conditions of conflict and mass displacement cannot be treated as authoritative for elections, representation or citizenship policy. Donors should condition technical support on minimum standards of inclusion and transparency, including recognition of displaced populations and refugees as part of the national community. Regional governments should insist that any political process explicitly protects minority identity and rights rather than burying them in administrative procedures.

For Bangladesh, this moment demands a strategic shift. Managing the camps is no longer enough. Dhaka must press for political engagement that addresses who is counted and who is not, including dialogue with all relevant power-holders inside Myanmar. Without that, the burden will continue to fall on Bangladesh while decisions that shape the refugees’ future are made elsewhere.

Myanmar’s tragedy did not begin with an election and it will not end with one. The census now underway will outlast the current news cycle and shape the country’s political geography for a generation. If it proceeds without inclusion, it will not simply measure the population. It will decide which communities are allowed to exist in Myanmar’s future and which are written out of it.

• Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is the director of special initiatives at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, D.C. X: @AzeemIbrahim