With Myanmar in disarray, under heavy bombardment and rights abuses rampant, there is no way it can hold free and fair elections next month, the UN rights chief said Monday.
Myanmar鈥檚 military seized power in a 2021 coup, sparking a civil war, but is trumpeting elections as an opportunity for reconciliation.
The ruling junta has touted polls scheduled to start on December 28 as a path to peace, but the vote will be blocked from rebel-held enclaves and monitors are dismissing it as a ploy to disguise continuing military rule.
鈥楾he situation in Myanmar, unfortunately, does not get enough media attention, and people have been suffering,鈥� Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in an interview in Geneva.
He said the military had 鈥榬estricted entirely the civic space, with those who are in opposition being detained, with journalists being killed鈥�, all the time with 鈥榟eavy bombardments of civilians鈥� and the on-going civil war, notably in Rakhine State.
鈥楾o hold elections under these circumstances is unfathomable,鈥� said Turk.
鈥楬ow can anyone say that they鈥檙e free and fair, and how can they even be conducted when considerable parts of the country are actually not in anyone鈥檚 control, and with the military being party to the conflict and having suppressed its population for years?鈥�
Rights groups have said the election cannot be legitimate, with democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi deposed and jailed in the coup, and her vastly popular National League for Democracy party dissolved.
The junta seized power making unsubstantiated claims of fraud in a 2020 election that the NLD won in a landslide.
A many-sided civil war has since consumed Myanmar, with the junta having lost swathes of the country to pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic-minority armed factions.
There is no official death toll for Myanmar鈥檚 civil war and estimates vary widely.
Rebel groups have pledged to block the polls from their enclaves.
Protesting against the poll has been made punishable by up to a decade in prison.