Myanmar’s 2024 census was virtually actually essentially the most contentious – and lethal – ever carried out.
Enumerators and their closely armed guards from Myanmar’s navy had been topic to repeated assaults from opposition teams, as they stumbled by way of a failed try to 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 gadget. Days later, three extra troopers had 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, informed Al Jazeera.
“However the regime has declared it a marvellous success.”
What is mostly a secular 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 leads to January, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Inhabitants stated the census represents the navy authorities’s “dedication to nationwide reconciliation”.
But it surely additionally represents the ultimate step earlier than the navy 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 struggle.
Whereas the navy has painted a possible vote as a return to democratic norms, for Myanmar’s opposition forces, elections are merely an try to legitimise the illegitimate regime that seized energy in February 2021.
The “election shall be a sham, it is going to simply be for present”, stated Zaw Kyaw, a spokesperson for the presidential workplace on the Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG), an exiled administration that features lawmakers ousted by the navy.
“The navy believes that [holding an election] shall be an exit technique, and so they can get some legitimacy within the eyes of some nations by internet hosting a sham election,” he informed Al Jazeera.
“However this election is not going to result in stability. It should 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) occasion to a landslide victory in Myanmar’s basic election, successful 82 % of seats contested within the nation’s nationwide and regional parliaments.
Three months later, within the early hours of February 1, the navy would overthrow Aung San Suu Kyi’s authorities, arresting her and different NLD figures. Justifying the coup, the navy 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 insurrection that continues to engulf massive swaths of the nation right this moment.
The military-installed authorities – led by Senior Normal Min Aung Hlaing as its prime minister, and extra lately president – has dominated the nation since 2021 below a state of emergency that it has renewed a number of instances because it battles ethnic armed teams and newer pro-democracy fighters throughout the nation.
On Friday, the navy prolonged the state of emergency an additional six months to July 31.
“There are nonetheless extra duties to be accomplished to carry the final election efficiently,” the navy stated, saying the extension of emergency rule.
“Particularly for a free and honest election, stability and peace remains to be wanted,” it stated.
Myanmar’s navy stated its objective for the 2024 census was to offer an “correct” voter checklist for the subsequent election.
Such an inventory 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,” stated 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, notably in areas managed by democratic resistance teams or revolutionary forces,” she informed Al Jazeera.
By its personal account, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and Inhabitants stated it solely absolutely counted populations in 145 out of Myanmar’s 330 townships, which seems to point the navy now controls lower than half the nation.
Regardless of the restricted census information, the ministry stated it was “profoundly grateful to the folks of Myanmar for his or her enthusiastic participation”, describing the census as a “resounding success”.
Khin Ohmar stated the truth is that members of the general public who participated within the census had been compelled “into offering private information”, typically “at gunpoint”.
“It’s clear that the junta will proceed to make use of these violent techniques in opposition to civilians for its sham election,” she stated.
“Any public participation is assured to have been coerced by the navy junta,” she added.
Myanmar’s navy 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 navy can’t be overstated.
Whereas proclamations of its imminent demise have been frequent because the coup, the as soon as unlikely objective of a regime-free Myanmar now seems to be extra achievable than ever because the navy has suffered severe 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 navy experiencing its worst territorial and personnel losses in its historical past. Some 91 cities and 167 navy battalions fell to resistance forces in a disaster of an “unprecedented scale”, in keeping with the USA 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 fantastic notion.
The regime’s Election Fee Chairman Ko Ko stated in December the polls could be held in slightly 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 navy as there for the taking.
Whereas the ousted NLD administration, in authorities between 2015 and 2021, tried to strike a stability between civilian and navy rule in the course of the nation’s short-lived democratic experiment, a return to the pre-coup established order of navy officers in authorities is now not an choice.
“Our important objective [in 2025] is to remove the navy dictatorship,” the NUG’s Zaw Kyaw stated.
“The navy 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 navy institution.
“There may be stress 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 endlessly,” Horsey stated.
“He’s consolidated all energy in his personal arms and so they desire a slice of the motion,” he stated.
The navy’s most influential patron, China, “has additionally been pushing very laborious”, Horsey added.
“[China] has little interest in electoral democracy, however they don’t like [Min Aung Hlaing] and assume elections shall be a approach of diluting his energy. Maybe even bringing extra affordable, predictable and amendable folks to the fore,” he stated.
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 struggle 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 – at the moment 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 navy will maintain the sham polls is irrelevant.
Holding “elections are an absolute anathema to most individuals” in Myanmar, the Disaster Group’s Horsey stated.
“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 stated.
“That’s one thing that individuals simply is not going to settle for and they’re going to 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 occasion workplaces, and take part within the election? There’s going to be ambushes, assaults, assassinations – it’s going to be very very harmful,” he stated.
“It’s going to be a weird train, one thing that nobody else, I believe, would recognise as an election.”
Whereas Horsey stated there was a “consensus” amongst most resistance teams that civilians concerned within the census shouldn’t be attacked, he believes the stakes are greater for the elections and polling stations will “completely be seen as a professional goal”.
The NUG’s Zaw Kyaw stated whereas there’ll “positively” be assaults on navy targets by the Individuals’s Defence Pressure (PDF), there shall be “no assaults on civilians” collaborating within the vote.
However even when violence concentrating on civilians is restricted, punitive motion of assorted varieties will virtually actually be taken in opposition to these deemed to be collaborating with the navy regime.
Through the census, 9 enumerators, largely feminine academics, had been arrested and held for greater than a month by PDF fighters in Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi Area.
Bo Sea, a Tanintharyi PDF spokesman, informed Al Jazeera that whereas the group recognises some civilians are compelled into collaborating in election preparations, these deemed keen collaborators will face “much more extreme” punishment than census contributors.
“We contemplate these folks as collaborating with the junta’s election course of as accomplices,” he stated. “There shall 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, stated those that “help the terrorist navy council [in carrying out the elections] shall be prosecuted below counterterrorism legal guidelines”.
Bo Than Mani, chief of the Yinmarbin PDF, additionally in Sagaing Area, informed Al Jazeera his unit will “disrupt” the election, however denied it could conduct violent assaults in opposition to these collaborating.
What is evident, a minimum of 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 navy regime.
“Their morale is on the lowest,” Zaw Kyaw stated.
“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 stated.
“However positively the navy will fall. Nobody can cease the navy from falling down.”
Further reporting by Hein Thar.
