Irrawaddy-July 19
The junta began training officials on electronic voting machines in northern Shan State on Thursday, ahead of its planned “national election” in December. Training is being held in the small area of northern Shan still under regime control, after ethnic resistance forces captured most of the state during Operation 1027. Sixty election staff are currently attending workshops at Tangyan Township General Administration Department, part of the junta’s effort to lend a semblance of legitimacy to a vote planned amid ongoing civil war. Seventy junta election officials from northern Shan had previously joined similar training sessions in eastern and southern Shan State. Operation 1027, launched in late 2023, saw the regime lose control of more than a dozen towns in northern Shan State, including the capital Lashio, Nawnghkio, Kyaukme, Hsipaw, Hseni, Kutkai, Kunlong and Laukkai. However, April’s recapture of Lashio, aided by Chinese pressure, followed by Tuesday’s seizure of Nawnghkio from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, appears to have emboldened the junta to expand its election plan into northern Shan State. Tangyan, the site of the election training is being held, sits at the junction of northern, eastern, and southern Shan State, bordered by Lashio to the west and United Wa State Army territory to the east. Its strategic location highlights the regime’s attempt to project the illusion that its “election” will take place across the whole of Shan State. Eastern and southern Shan State remain strongholds of the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). The military staged its February 2021 coup after the USDP was trounced by the National League for Democracy (NLD) in a general election that both domestic and international observers deemed free and fair. After seizing power, the junta has imprisoned Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders while dissolving her party along with around 40 other political outfits. Its planned vote has been widely condemned as a sham to entrench military rule. Read more at:
