Myanmar Elections 2025 LIVE Updates: Low turnout, heavy security witnessed in ‘sham’ polls

According to the Union Election Commission, a total of 4,863 candidates representing 57 political parties are in the fray. The final results of the elections, which cannot be conducted in areas under rebel control, are expected to be announced in late January, reported Bloomberg.

Additional rounds of voting are scheduled for January 11 and January 25, encompassing 265 of Myanmar’s 330 townships, though the junta does not fully control all of these areas, according to Reuters.

Initial voter turnout in Sunday’s polls was reported to be much lower than in the 2020 election, according to 10 residents from various cities across Myanmar, Reuters reported.

Polls closed on Sunday in the first round of Myanmar’s junta-organised elections, marking the end of the opening stage of a month-long voting process that democracy watchdogs have criticised as an attempt to legitimise continued military rule, according to AFP.

AFP reported that election officials at a polling station in downtown Yangon made a final announcement for voters over loudspeakers before shutting voting at 4:00 pm (1030 GMT). The location was close to the site of large pro-democracy demonstrations that erupted in 2021 following the military coup.

Large numbers of young voters who had previously turned out in significant numbers during past elections in Myanmar were notably missing from Sunday’s military-organised poll, where turnout was largely dominated by older voters, according to AFP.

Many young people are reported to have left the conflict-hit country since the military takeover five years ago, including men of conscription age, up to 35, as well as youths in search of better economic opportunities outside Myanmar’s struggling economy.

"Most of the people who go to vote are elderly," said one man in his 20s in the Mandalay area, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

"I don't think anyone wants to get involved in this chaos. People probably don't believe in the fairness of this election."

As per AFP, Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing informed reporters in the capital Naypyidaw, where he cast his ballot after polls opened at 6:00 am (2330 GMT Saturday), "We guarantee it to be a free and fair election. It's organised by the military, we can't let our name be tarnished."

Former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed, while her hugely popular party has been dissolved and is not taking part.

Asked by reporters if he would like to become the country's president, an office that analysts say he has ambitions for, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said he wasn't the leader of any political party. "When the parliament convenes, there is a process for electing the president," he said.

Voters went to the polls Sunday for the initial phase of Myanmar ’s first general election in five years, held under the supervision of its military government while a civil war rages throughout much of the country.

A United Nations official urged governments to reject “sham” polls in Myanmar as junta “ratchets up coercion of citizens to vote”. The statement warned that the election starting December 28 is “engineered to manufacture a façade of legitimacy.”

Dressed in civilian clothes, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing voted in the Naypyitaw city, then held up an ink-soaked little finger, smiling widely, photographs published by the pro-military Popular News Journal showed.