Author: Bertil Lintner

Published: 29 Jan 2026

The election the Myanmar junta had pledged to hold was finally held, unfolding in three phases – on Dec. 28, 2025, Jan. 11 and Jan. 25, 2026. To nobody’s surprise, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) scored what officials called a landslide victory. It captured more than 80 percent of elected upper and lower house seats while the rest went to smaller military-aligned parties; as before, the 2007 Constitution also gave the armed forces a quarter of the seats in both houses of Parliament without a vote. 

The new parliament will convene in March and will be dominated by those military officers and former officers who have become “civilians.” Under their governance, absolute military rule will remain and, moreover, after the lessons learned from the 2011-2021 decade of openness, it is highly unlikely that the freedoms people enjoyed during that time will be repeated. But the Myanmar military may believe that the elections, despite widespread international criticism, will eventually lead to recognition or at least acceptance by foreign governments.

No opposition 

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https://www.globalasia.org/forum/myanmars-sad-election-spectacle_bertil-lintner

The article was published by Global Asia Forum.

The Romanian Institute for Europe-Asia Studies (IRSEA) and Global Asia Forum a Journal of East Asia Foundation. have agreed to enter into an informal agreement on republishing their studies and analysis.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position or view of IRSEA.