Two years after a coup in Myanmar, the country's military is planning elections that analysts warn could spark further bloodshed as opposition to junta rule intensifies.
The move will "fuel greater violence," a UN envoy said yesterday, urging the international community to unite in opposition.
Observers say the poll cannot be free and fair under the present circumstances, with one analyst terming it as a move to justify the junta's hold on power.
Allegations of voter fraud in the last election in November 2020 -- won by Aung San Suu Kyi's party -- were the army's excuse for seizing power on February 1, 2021.
Though the claims were never substantiated, the generals arrested Suu Kyi and other top civilian leaders.
With the political opposition now decimated, the military is expected to hold a new election later this year -- no later than August.
But with resistance ranging from the hilly jungles of the borderlands to the plains, people across the country will be unlikely to vote.
Any junta-held poll will be "like a cart with only one wheel", a former civil servant said, adding: "There is no way it will bring any progress."
In the jungle near the border with Thailand, a resistance force member vowed elections would have no bearing on their mission to oust the military from politics.
Over a million people have been displaced since the coup, with the military accused of bombing and shelling civilians and committing war crimes as it struggles to crush resistance.
Last week UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the country faced a "catastrophic situation."
As the state of emergency was due to expire at the end of January, the authorities must move to hold fresh elections.
The junta is yet to set a date, but last week gave all existing and aspiring political parties two months to register with its election commission.
Military negotiators are working to stitch together a large enough patchwork of constituencies to make an election credible, including ethnic rebel groups that have stayed out of the post-coup chaos, and smaller, regional parties.
But voting will likely be impossible in many areas of the country, said an expert.
Threats have also been made by anti-coup fighters against those cooperating with the election, with local media reporting several attacks on teams verifying voter lists in commercial hub Yangon.
