Myanmar’s military leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who currently serves as both the army’s commander in chief and the country’s head of state, has reshuffled the government’s administrative structure in preparation for planned elections later this year.
But this merely masks the junta leader’s main strategic intention: strengthening his control of the country before the polls are held. In the meantime, Myanmar’s military, or Tatmadaw, has stepped up its aerial attacks on the revolutionary forces in an attempt to retake as much territory as possible before December’s elections.
Last month Min Aung Hlaing formed a new ten-member State Security and Peace Commission (SSPC) — which took over from the former State Administrative Council (SAC), which had been responsible for running the country since the military seized power was in February 2021 — while simultaneously extending the state of emergency; something he has done every six months since he seized power in a military coup four and a half years ago.
Despite these changes — which are effectively cosmetic — Myanmar’s military leader continues to have complete and absolute power, as the commander in chief and head of state. Crucially, he remains the chairman of the new military commission, which replaced the SAC, which had governed the country since February 2021.
To reinforce his control of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), Min Aung Hlaing appointed the former military general Aung Lin Dway as the NDSC’s chief executive officer and Lt-Gen Ye Win Oo as joint chief executive of the NDSC office, where he remains its secretary. In addition, a central advisory group of 15 members, including former SAC members and ex-ministers, was formed.
The use of the term “security” in the name of the newly formed military commission, and the strengthening of the National Defence and Security Council, can be interpreted as an essential part of Min Aung Hlaing’s intention to effectively expand military power in the lead-up to the elections.
In preparation for the forthcoming elections, the SSPC has declared 90-day-long local military administrations in 63 townships across nine states and regions.
This includes the following ethnic areas: 14 townships in Arakan, five townships in Kachin, three townships in Karenni (Kayah), two townships in Karen, seven townships in Chin, 14 townships in Rakhine and 15 townships in Shan; and in the Burma heartland — nine townships in Sagaing, five townships in Magway, and three townships in Mandalay.
In these states and regions, the regional commanders have been given full military administrative powers.
The junta has also suspended three key articles — 5, 7 and 8 — of the 2017 Privacy and Security Law, which had been enacted by the National League for Democracy (NLD) government under President Htin Kyaw in March 2017. The suspension of these three provisions — that previously protected the people’s privacy and security — is essentially another signal that the authorities can now unreservedly interfere with the people’s privacy and security at will.
All these administrative manoeuvres are part of the junta’s efforts to tighten its grip on power and increase its control of the country. To this end, the Tatmadaw has escalated the civil war, committing crimes against humanity, intensifying airstrikes and ground offensives, leading to increased massacres of civilians and committing human rights violations. The next five months — leading up to the sham elections — will only see this situation worsen.
On Aug 18, the junta’s election commission announced that the first phase of the elections would take place in 102 townships, including areas under the control of the National Unity Government (NUG) and ethnic resistance organisations (ERO) — the revolutionary forces fighting the Tatmadaw.
In most of the other areas, there is also fierce fighting. This effectively limits the credibility of Gen Min Aung Hlaing’s attempt to hold elections. The fact that the polls will only be held in 102 out of 330 townships already undermines the planned election’s legitimacy. On top of that, many of those 102 townships are under the control of the resistance forces, underlining the military’s inability to hold a genuine nationwide election.
That is why the junta is trying to stage fragmented or partial polls, while ramping up violence to seize increased territorial control. All this is being done with military aid from foreign allies and compulsory conscription programmes supplying its manpower. The junta is particularly targeting revolutionary-controlled territories within the declared election townships, launching massive military offensives, committing atrocities including burning villages, executing civilians, destroying property and looting.
According to data from the NUG’s Ministry of Human Rights in August alone, the Tatmadaw committed 605 violations — including arbitrary arrests and detention, forced conscription including child soldiers, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, torture and the mass displacement of civilians. At least 225 civilians were killed in 22 separate massacres — the highest monthly toll recorded this year.
In Sagaing Region in February, soldiers are reported to have beheaded one civilian and dumped his body in a stream. In Kanbalu township, troops executed two displaced people and stole livestock. In Magway Region, Pauk Township, 33 homes were wrecked and torched.
Among the deadliest incidents recorded by the NUG included one on Aug 2 when a jet bombed a residential area in Myitnge (Mandalay) killing 12 civilians, including a monk and a child.
Then on Aug 8 a junta drone strike on a funeral in Thabeikkyin, Mandalay, killed at least 11 people and wounded 40 others; while on Aug 17 two consecutive airstrikes on a hospital in Mochi (Karenni State) killed 32 civilians, including five children; and on Aug 25 an airstrike on Aungdat Quarter in Mrauk-U (Rakhine State) killed 12 civilians, including children, and injured more than 21 people.
Data and analysis from the NUG’s Human Rights Ministry show that massacres and airstrikes increased sharply after the March 28 earthquake (7.7 magnitude) caused by the Sagaing Fault and intensified dramatically following the junta’s administrative structural changes in July. Sagaing and Mandalay remain the hardest-hit areas, as they are key resistance strongholds.
In August, the United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) stated it had uncovered “systematic torture” in Myanmar’s military-run detention facilities — including beatings, electric shocks, strangulations and gang rape — a pattern of atrocities which is intensifying across the country.
What is clear is that in the next three months leading up to the planned Dec 28 election, the people of Myanmar face escalating war crimes and systematic repression. The junta’s so-called election is nothing more than an attempt to entrench its power and shield itself from accountability for its crimes.
Supporting such an election means enabling the junta’s violence against its people. The international community must not recognise these polls as legitimate in the vain hope that they could help resolve the ongoing civil war. That would be to completely ignore the junta’s reprehensible brutality.