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Three Myanmar activists from different generations and regions explain why the junta’s planned 2025 elections are a tool to entrench military rule rather than restore democracy. Grounded in Kachin frontline realities, decades of manipulated electoral law, and widespread disenfranchisement, they show how communities are resisting the sham process and what meaningful international solidarity and accountability would require.
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In this episode:
• Examine how the military dismantled and rebuilt the Union Election Commission to script the 2025 vote under a rejected 2008 constitution.
• Trace Myanmar’s long history of coups, controlled elections, and restrictive party laws with veteran activist Aung Moe Zaw.
• Hear Brang Min describe daily life amid airstrikes, displacement, and internet blackouts in Kachin State, and why elections feel irrelevant to survival.
• Detail the disenfranchisement of ethnic communities, including Rohingya, and the cancellation of dozens of townships from the junta’s phased electoral map.
• Analyze the new electoral laws and opaque proportional representation system that all but guarantee seats for military-aligned candidates.
• Explore coordinated anti-sham election strategies by civil society groups, diaspora communities, and ethnic resistance organizations, alongside calls for international justice for war crimes and the Rohingya genocide.
Chapters
00:00:00 Intro: coup, revolution, sham elections
00:02:41 Meet the guests & anti-sham campaign
00:06:35 How the junta rebuilt the UEC
00:11:15 Decades of coups and party restrictions
00:18:13 Kachin frontlines and ethnic divide-and-rule
00:24:31 Disenfranchisement and phased sham elections
00:31:05 Rigged system and pre-decided seats
00:39:19 Power, prisoners, and Suu Kyi’s fate
00:46:46 Why sham elections won’t change resistance
00:48:33 International community, ASEAN, and 5PC
00:59:26 China, India, ASEAN, and regional realpolitik
01:10:01 Boycotts, Kachin attacks, and justice demands
