Myanmar’s 2024 census was virtually definitely essentially the most contentious – and lethal – ever performed.
Enumerators and their closely armed guards from Myanmar’s army have been topic to repeated assaults from opposition teams, as they stumbled by means of a failed try and doc the nation’s inhabitants between October and December final yr.
One incident in early October noticed seven troopers offering safety for census takers in Mandalay Area killed with an explosive machine. Days later, three extra troopers have been killed when opposition forces hit their automobile with a shoulder-launched rocket in Kayin State within the nation’s east.
“The census was an utter, abject failure,” Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser to the Worldwide Disaster Group, advised Al Jazeera.
“However the regime has declared it a marvellous success.”
What is mostly an earthly administrative train in inhabitants counting in most components of the world, that Myanmar’s census was met with such violent resistance speaks to its significance within the nation’s democratic trajectory.
Publishing preliminary ends in January, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Inhabitants mentioned the census represents the army authorities’s “dedication to nationwide reconciliation”.
However it additionally represents the ultimate step earlier than the army makes an attempt to carry a nationwide election later this yr – the primary since overthrowing Myanmar’s democratically elected authorities in a coup 4 years in the past and igniting a civil warfare.
Whereas the army has painted a possible vote as a return to democratic norms, for Myanmar’s opposition forces, elections are merely an try and legitimise the illegitimate regime that seized energy in February 2021.
The “election will likely be a sham, it’s going to simply be for present”, mentioned Zaw Kyaw, a spokesperson for the presidential workplace on the Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG), an exiled administration that features lawmakers ousted by the army.
“The army believes that [holding an election] will likely be an exit technique, and so they can get some legitimacy within the eyes of some international locations by internet hosting a sham election,” he advised Al Jazeera.
“However this election is not going to result in stability. It’s going to result in extra instability and extra violence.”
‘Completely no credible information’
In November 2020, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi led her Nationwide League for Democracy (NLD) social gathering to a landslide victory in Myanmar’s normal election, profitable 82 p.c of seats contested within the nation’s nationwide and regional parliaments.
Three months later, within the early hours of February 1, the army would overthrow Aung San Suu Kyi’s authorities, arresting her and different NLD figures. Justifying the coup, the army alleged huge NLD voter fraud within the polls and declared the outcomes void, with out offering any proof of wrongdoing. The coup triggered nationwide pro-democracy protests, morphing into an armed riot that continues to engulf giant swaths of the nation as we speak.
The military-installed authorities – led by Senior Basic Min Aung Hlaing as its prime minister, and extra just lately president – has dominated the nation since 2021 beneath a state of emergency that it has renewed a number of occasions because it battles ethnic armed teams and newer pro-democracy fighters throughout the nation.
On Friday, the army prolonged the state of emergency an additional six months to July 31.
“There are nonetheless extra duties to be executed to carry the final election efficiently,” the army mentioned, asserting the extension of emergency rule.
“Particularly for a free and truthful election, stability and peace continues to be wanted,” it mentioned.
Myanmar’s army mentioned its aim for the 2024 census was to supply an “correct” voter checklist for the subsequent election.
Such a listing would forestall the double-counting of ballots and the participation of ineligible voters, stamping out the widespread voter fraud it claims corrupted the vote in 2020.
“The junta produced completely no credible information,” mentioned Khin Ohmar, founding father of democracy and human rights group Progressive Voice.
“The junta’s sham census lacked protection of main swaths of territory and enormous segments of the inhabitants, significantly in areas managed by democratic resistance teams or revolutionary forces,” she advised Al Jazeera.
By its personal account, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Inhabitants mentioned it solely totally counted populations in 145 out of Myanmar’s 330 townships, which seems to point the army now controls lower than half the nation.
Regardless of the restricted census information, the ministry mentioned it was “profoundly grateful to the folks of Myanmar for his or her enthusiastic participation”, describing the census as a “resounding success”.
Khin Ohmar mentioned the fact is that members of the general public who participated within the census have been compelled “into offering private information”, typically “at gunpoint”.
“It’s clear that the junta will proceed to make use of these violent ways towards civilians for its sham election,” she mentioned.
“Any public participation is assured to have been coerced by the army junta,” she added.
Myanmar’s army authorities didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark from Al Jazeera.
A disaster of an ‘unprecedented scale’
Simply how excessive stakes elections are for Myanmar’s severely weakened army can’t be overstated.
Whereas proclamations of its imminent demise have been frequent for the reason that coup, the as soon as unlikely aim of a regime-free Myanmar now seems extra achievable than ever because the army has suffered critical setbacks since late 2023.
In October that yr the Three Brotherhood Alliance – a coalition of ethnic armed teams: the Arakan Military, the Myanmar Nationwide Democratic Alliance Military, and the Ta’ang Nationwide Liberation Military – carried out a devastating assault on military-controlled territory in northern Shan State.
Setbacks for the regime continued into 2024 with the army experiencing its worst territorial and personnel losses in its historical past. Some 91 cities and 167 army battalions fell to resistance forces in a disaster of an “unprecedented scale”, in line with america Institute of Peace.
Plummeting morale has additionally seen a “historic surge in defections” from the military.
Within the context of diminishing management and more and more strong violent resistance, critics say holding a nationwide election is a whimsical notion.
The regime’s Election Fee Chairman Ko Ko mentioned in December the polls can be held in just below half of the nation’s 330 townships nationwide. However even this determine seems unduly optimistic.
Myanmar’s pro-democracy resistance teams and anti-military authorities ethnic armed organisations more and more see the army as there for the taking.
Whereas the ousted NLD administration, in authorities between 2015 and 2021, tried to strike a stability between civilian and army rule throughout the nation’s short-lived democratic experiment, a return to the pre-coup established order of army officers in authorities is now not an choice.
“Our principal aim [in 2025] is to remove the army dictatorship,” the NUG’s Zaw Kyaw mentioned.
“The army is weaker than it has ever been in Myanmar’s historical past,” he added.
Regardless of the inherent safety dangers, Horsey of the Disaster Group believes nationwide polls look “more and more seemingly” this yr.
Time can also be ticking for Min Aung Hlaing, Horsey says, as grumbling grows louder from inside the army institution.
“There may be strain from inside the elite to carry these polls. They don’t need Min Aung Hlaing ensconced as dictator-for-life. Most don’t relish the prospect of him sticking round eternally,” Horsey mentioned.
“He’s consolidated all energy in his personal arms and so they desire a slice of the motion,” he mentioned.
The army’s most influential patron, China, “has additionally been pushing very exhausting”, Horsey added.
“[China] has little interest in electoral democracy, however they don’t like [Min Aung Hlaing] and assume elections will likely be a method of diluting his energy. Even perhaps bringing extra cheap, predictable and amendable folks to the fore,” he mentioned.
One group not pushing for elections in Myanmar is the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The ten-member bloc, of which Myanmar is a member, has been bitterly divided on the issue. However ASEAN overseas ministers issued a joint assertion in January telling the regime that holding an election amid an escalating civil warfare shouldn’t be a “precedence”.
‘Violent, messy’ and ‘weird train’
Beneath Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 structure, authorities are mandated to carry elections inside six months of the state of emergency being lifted – presently set for July 31 – with November the normal month to take action.
However for the overwhelming majority of Myanmar’s embattled inhabitants, what month the army will maintain the sham polls is irrelevant.
Holding “elections are an absolute anathema to most individuals” in Myanmar, the Disaster Group’s Horsey mentioned.
“It’s seen as – and is – an try [by the military] to wipe away the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi’s landslide victory 5 years in the past,” he mentioned.
“That’s one thing that folks simply is not going to settle for and they’ll resist.”
Such resistance was already evident within the assaults disrupting the census, and Horsey believes the elections will equally be a “violent, messy, incomplete course of”.
“Who of their proper thoughts would marketing campaign, open social gathering workplaces, and take part within the election? There’s going to be ambushes, assaults, assassinations – it’s going to be very very harmful,” he mentioned.
“It’s going to be a weird train, one thing that nobody else, I feel, would recognise as an election.”
Whereas Horsey mentioned there was a “consensus” amongst most resistance teams that civilians concerned within the census shouldn’t be attacked, he believes the stakes are increased for the elections and polling stations will “completely be seen as a respectable goal”.
The NUG’s Zaw Kyaw mentioned whereas there’ll “undoubtedly” be assaults on army targets by the Folks’s Defence Pressure (PDF), there will likely be “no assaults on civilians” taking part within the vote.
However even when violence concentrating on civilians is proscribed, punitive motion of assorted varieties will virtually definitely be taken towards these deemed to be collaborating with the army regime.
In the course of the census, 9 enumerators, principally feminine academics, have been arrested and held for greater than a month by PDF fighters in Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi Area.
Bo Sea, a Tanintharyi PDF spokesman, advised Al Jazeera that whereas the group recognises some civilians are compelled into taking part in election preparations, these deemed prepared collaborators will face “much more extreme” punishment than census individuals.
“We take into account these folks as collaborating with the junta’s election course of as accomplices,” he mentioned. “There will likely be civilian academics and election officers concerned. Their participation means they’re aligning themselves with the junta,” he added.
Bo Sea will not be alone.
Ko Aung Kyaw Hein, a spokesman for the PDF in Sagaing Area in Myanmar’s northwest, mentioned those that “assist the terrorist army council [in carrying out the elections] will likely be prosecuted beneath counterterrorism legal guidelines”.
Bo Than Mani, chief of the Yinmarbin PDF, additionally in Sagaing Area, advised Al Jazeera his unit will “disrupt” the election, however denied it might conduct violent assaults towards these taking part.
What is evident, not less than to these in Myanmar’s resistance, is that no matter how the nationwide elections play out, it represents a determined act by a determined, sinking army regime.
“Their morale is on the lowest,” Zaw Kyaw mentioned.
“I can’t predict when the collapse will occur. It may occur tomorrow. It may occur in months. It may occur in a yr,” he mentioned.
“However undoubtedly the army will fall. Nobody can cease the army from falling down.”
Extra reporting by Hein Thar.
