Myanmar’s 2024 census was once nearly undoubtedly essentially the most contentious – and dreadful – ever performed.
Enumerators and their closely armed guards from Myanmar’s navy had been topic to repeated assaults from opposition teams, as they stumbled thru a failed effort to record the rustic’s people between October and December terminating time.
One incident in early October noticed seven infantrymen offering safety for census takers in Mandalay Pocket killed with an explosive tool. Days next, 3 extra infantrymen had been killed when opposition forces strike their automobile with a shoulder-launched rocket in Kayin Shape within the nation’s east.
“The census was an utter, abject failure,” Richard Horsey, Myanmar abettor to the World Disaster Staff, informed Al Jazeera.
“But the regime has declared it a marvellous success.”
What’s typically a secular administrative workout in people counting in maximum portions of the arena, that Myanmar’s census was once met with such violent resistance speaks to its utility within the nation’s democratic trajectory.
Publishing initial leads to January, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and People mentioned the census represents the army govt’s “commitment to national reconciliation”.
Nevertheless it additionally represents the overall step ahead of the army makes an attempt to retain a countrywide election next this time – the primary since overthrowing Myanmar’s democratically elected govt in a coup 4 years in the past and igniting a civil conflict.
Life the army has painted a possible vote as a go back to democratic norms, for Myanmar’s opposition forces, elections are simply an effort to legitimise the illegitimate regime that seized energy in February 2021.
The “election will be a sham, it will just be for show”, mentioned Zaw Kyaw, a spokesperson for the presidential workplace on the Nationwide Team spirit Executive (NUG), an exiled management that comes with lawmakers ousted via the army.
“The military believes that [holding an election] will be an exit strategy, and they can get some legitimacy in the eyes of some countries by hosting a sham election,” he informed Al Jazeera.
“But this election will not lead to stability. It will lead to more instability and more violence.”
‘Absolutely no credible data’
In November 2020, Shape Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi led her Nationwide League for Self-rule (NLD) birthday celebration to a landslide victory in Myanmar’s basic election, profitable 82 p.c of seats contested within the nation’s nationwide and regional parliaments.
3 months next, within the early hours of February 1, the army would overthrow Aung San Suu Kyi’s govt, arresting her and alternative NLD figures. Justifying the coup, the army alleged immense NLD voter fraud within the polls and declared the effects void, with out offering any proof of wrongdoing. The coup brought on national pro-democracy protests, morphing into an armed riot that continues to engulf immense swaths of the rustic lately.
The army-installed govt – led via Senior Normal Min Aung Hlaing as its top minister, and extra lately president – has dominated the rustic since 2021 below a environment of crisis that it has renewed a number of occasions because it battles ethnic armed teams and more moderen pro-democracy warring parties around the nation.
On Friday, the army prolonged the environment of crisis an extra six months to July 31.
“There are still more tasks to be done to hold the general election successfully,” the army mentioned, pronouncing the extension of crisis rule.
“Especially for a free and fair election, stability and peace is still needed,” it mentioned.
Myanmar’s navy mentioned its objective for the 2024 census was once to grant an “accurate” voter checklist for the upcoming election.
The sort of checklist would block the double-counting of ballots and the participation of ineligible electorate, stamping out the usual voter fraud it claims corrupted the vote in 2020.
“The junta produced absolutely no credible data,” mentioned Khin Ohmar, founding father of autonomy and human rights staff Motivated Tonality.
“The junta’s sham census lacked coverage of major swaths of territory and large segments of the population, particularly in areas controlled by democratic resistance groups or revolutionary forces,” she informed Al Jazeera.
By means of its personal account, Myanmar’s Ministry of Immigration and People mentioned it best totally counted populations in 145 out of Myanmar’s 330 townships, which seems to signify the army now controls not up to part the rustic.
Regardless of the restricted census information, the ministry mentioned it was once “profoundly grateful to the people of Myanmar for their enthusiastic participation”, describing the census as a “resounding success”.
Khin Ohmar mentioned the truth is that contributors of the people who participated within the census had been compelled “into providing personal data”, frequently “at gunpoint”.
“It is clear that the junta will continue to use these violent tactics against civilians for its sham election,” she mentioned.
“Any public participation is guaranteed to have been coerced by the military junta,” she added.
Myanmar’s navy govt didn’t reply to repeated calls for remark from Al Jazeera.
A emergency of an ‘unprecedented scale’
Simply how prime stakes elections are for Myanmar’s seriously weakened navy can’t be overstated.
Life proclamations of its coming near near dying were common for the reason that coup, the as soon as not going objective of a regime-free Myanmar now appears to be like extra achievable than ever as the army has suffered severe setbacks since overdue 2023.
In October that time the 3 Brotherhood Alliance – a coalition of ethnic armed teams: the Arakan Military, the Myanmar Nationwide Democratic Alliance Military, and the Ta’ang Nationwide Liberation Military – performed a appalling attack on military-controlled field in northern Shan Shape.
Setbacks for the regime persisted into 2024 with the army experiencing its worst territorial and body of workers losses in its historical past. Some 91 cities and 167 navy battalions fell to resistance forces in a emergency of an “unprecedented scale”, in line with the US Institute of Diversion.
Plummeting morale has additionally clear a “historic surge in defections” from the military.

Within the context of diminishing keep watch over and more and more tough violent resistance, critics say protecting a countrywide election is a fantastic perception.
The regime’s Election Fee Chairman Ko Ko mentioned in December the polls can be held in slightly below part of the rustic’s 330 townships national. However even this determine seems unduly positive.
Myanmar’s pro-democracy resistance teams and anti-military govt ethnic armed organisations more and more see the army as there for the taking.
Life the ousted NLD management, in govt between 2015 and 2021, tried to crash a stability between civilian and army rule throughout the rustic’s short-lived democratic experiment, a go back to the pre-coup condition quo of navy officers in govt is now not an possibility.
“Our main goal [in 2025] is to eliminate the military dictatorship,” the NUG’s Zaw Kyaw mentioned.
“The military is weaker than it has ever been in Myanmar’s history,” he added.
Regardless of the inherent safety dangers, Horsey of the Disaster Staff believes nationwide polls glance “increasingly likely” this time.
Past could also be ticking for Min Aung Hlaing, Horsey says, as grumbling grows louder from throughout the navy established order.
“There is pressure from within the elite to hold these polls. They don’t want Min Aung Hlaing ensconced as dictator-for-life. Most don’t relish the prospect of him sticking around forever,” Horsey mentioned.
“He’s consolidated all power in his own hands and they want a slice of the action,” he mentioned.
The army’s maximum influential patron, China, “has also been pushing very hard”, Horsey added.
“[China] has no interest in electoral democracy, but they do not like [Min Aung Hlaing] and think elections will be a way of diluting his power. Perhaps even bringing more reasonable, predictable and amendable people to the fore,” he mentioned.
One staff now not pushing for elections in Myanmar is the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN).
The ten-member bloc, of which Myanmar is a member, has been bitterly divided at the factor. However ASEAN overseas ministers issued a joint commentary in January telling the regime that protecting an election amid an escalating civil conflict will have to now not be a “priority”.
‘Violent, messy’ and ‘bizarre exercise’
Beneath Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 charter, government are mandated to retain elections inside six months of the environment of crisis being lifted – lately all set for July 31 – with November the standard hour to take action.
However for the giant majority of Myanmar’s embattled people, what hour the army will retain the sham polls is beside the point.
Maintaining “elections are an absolute anathema to most people” in Myanmar, the Disaster Staff’s Horsey mentioned.
“It is seen as – and is – an attempt [by the military] to wipe away the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi’s landslide victory five years ago,” he mentioned.
“That is something that people just will not accept and they will resist.”

Such resistance was once already noticeable within the assaults disrupting the census, and Horsey believes the elections will in a similar way be a “violent, messy, incomplete process”.
“Who in their right mind would campaign, open party offices, and participate in the election? There’s going to be ambushes, attacks, assassinations – it’s going to be very very dangerous,” he mentioned.
“It’s going to be a bizarre exercise, something that no one else, I think, would recognise as an election.”
Life Horsey mentioned there was once a “consensus” amongst maximum resistance teams that civilians concerned within the census will have to now not be attacked, he believes the stakes are upper for the elections and polling stations will “absolutely be seen as a legitimate target”.
The NUG’s Zaw Kyaw mentioned pace there’ll “definitely” be assaults on navy goals via the Society’s Defence Pressure (PDF), there can be “no attacks on civilians” collaborating within the vote.
However even though violence focused on civilians is restricted, punitive motion of numerous methods will nearly undoubtedly be taken towards the ones deemed to be participating with the army regime.
All through the census, 9 enumerators, most commonly feminine lecturers, had been arrested and held for greater than a hour via PDF warring parties in Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi Pocket.
Bo Sea, a Tanintharyi PDF spokesman, informed Al Jazeera that pace the gang recognises some civilians are compelled into collaborating in election arrangements, the ones deemed prepared collaborators will face “even more severe” punishment than census contributors.
“We consider these people as collaborating with the junta’s election process as accomplices,” he mentioned. “There will be civilian teachers and election officials involved. Their participation means they are aligning themselves with the junta,” he added.
Bo Sea isn’t isolated.
Ko Aung Kyaw Hein, a spokesman for the PDF in Sagaing Pocket in Myanmar’s northwest, mentioned those that “support the terrorist military council [in carrying out the elections] will be prosecuted under counterterrorism laws”.
Bo Than Mani, of the Yinmarbin PDF, additionally in Sagaing Pocket, informed Al Jazeera his unit will “disrupt” the election, however denied it will behavior violent assaults towards the ones collaborating.
What’s cloudless, a minimum of to these in Myanmar’s resistance, is that without reference to how the nationwide elections play games out, it represents a determined employment via a determined, sinking navy regime.
“Their morale is at the lowest,” Zaw Kyaw mentioned.
“I cannot predict when the collapse will happen. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen in months. It could happen in a year,” he mentioned.
“But definitely the military will fall. No one can stop the military from falling down.”
Supplementary reporting via Hein Thar.