Myanmar junta chief confirms year-end election plan
Myanmar's junta chief said the country plans to hold elections in December and January, state media reported Thursday, pressing ahead with polls denounced as a sham by international monitors.
The military deposed Myanmar's civilian government in a 2021 coup which sparked a many-sided civil war, but has promoted its election plans as a pathway to peace.
With members of the former government locked away, opposition groups set to boycott the vote and huge tracts of the country controlled by anti-junta rebels, observers say a fair poll is impossible.
State newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar said junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, speaking at a conference in the capital Naypyidaw on Wednesday, "pledged that the election will be held in December this year and January next year".
It is not clear whether the junta plans to hold the election in phases -- a potential sign it would struggle to guarantee security on a single nationwide polling day -- or whether the timetable includes a campaign period.
On Wednesday, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the rights situation in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said the junta is "trying to create this mirage of an election exercise that will create a legitimate civilian government".
"You cannot have an election when you imprison and torture and execute your opponents, when it is illegal to report the truth as a journalist, when it's illegal to speak out and criticise the junta," he told reporters in Geneva.
Junta forces have suffered stinging territorial losses to pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic armed organisations in recent months.
Military backing from China and Russia is letting it stave off defeat, analysts say, but huge areas of the country are set to be beyond the reach of any junta-organised democratic exercise.
A junta census held last year to prepare for the poll admitted it could not collect data from an estimated 19 million of the country's 51 million people, in part because of "significant security constraints".
"We are currently making the necessary preparations to hold the elections as widely and extensively as possible," Min Aung Hlaing said, according to a transcript of his conference speech in The Global New Light of Myanmar.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
10 hours ago
- The National
RSF leader and army-backed PM offer conflicting narratives for war-torn Sudan
Addressing the nation, the commander of Sudan 's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the new army-backed Prime Minister painted a contrasting picture of a country that has effectively been partitioned. The RSF and the army have been at war since April 2023. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 13 million while leaving millions facing acute hunger or, in growing numbers, famine. RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo and Prime Minister Kamil Idris spoke at about the same time one evening last week. Their styles and the content of their speeches highlighted a divided nation. The army, led by Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, controls the capital Khartoum, as well as the northern, eastern and central regions of the vast Afro-Arab nation. The RSF, whose forerunner is a notorious militia known as the Janjaweed, controls the entire western Darfur region, except for one city held by the army, and parts of Kordofan to the south-west. The army and its allies have yet to make a concerted effort to retake Darfur and Kordofan from the RSF, where it maintains the bulk of its forces and has allies among powerful rebel groups. Gen Dagalo is a one-time cattle trader and Janjaweed fighter who rose to national prominence through the patronage of former dictator Omar Al Bashir. In contrast, Mr Idris is a former UN diplomat educated in Switzerland, Egypt and the US, as well as his native Sudan. RSF view In desert camouflage, Gen Dagalo told hundreds of his fighters that the army and its allies were nothing more than criminal gangs of thieves. He also repeated his long-standing charge that Gen Al Burhan was relying on Islamists loyal to the toppled regime of Al Bashir. Standing on the back of an all-terrain vehicle at an unspecified site in Darfur, Gen Dagalo appeared to underscore the de facto partition of Sudan, speaking of the region in terms more akin to an independent nation rather than an integral part of Sudan. The RSF's administration of Darfur – by far the worst-affected area of Sudan in terms of hunger and famine – would achieve self-sufficiency in food following the rainy season, he said. The RSF, he added, would also secure international humanitarian assistance for Darfur's ethnically diverse residents. He did not elaborate. Gen Dagalo sought to portray the RSF as a protector of the country. He spoke of the paramilitary's role in safeguarding Sudan's northern border after his fighters recently seized the area where the borders of Egypt, Sudan and Libya converge, with Chad's a short distance to the west. "If our control of the border triangle has not benefited our neighbours, at least it has brought them no harm," he said. "The triangle and the desert are a bastion of corruption, smuggling, terrorism and illegal migration," Gen Dagalo told his fighters. Sudanese political analyst Osman Fadlallah said the speech "transcended the language of war to become presidential-like". He added: "Dagalo is proceeding with growing confidence in presenting himself as a substitute to rule Sudan, or at least to enshrine a parallel role in areas under RSF control." Army view In sharply contrasting style, Mr Idris, in a dark business suit and tie, delivered his speech at a studio, using a prompter to paint a rosy picture of the future of the resource-rich but impoverished nation under his stewardship. He said his government would end nepotism and operate based on justice, transparency and rule of law, said Mr Idris, whose inaugural address to the nation last month included segments directed at the West that he delivered in English, French and Spanish. He called on top experts and professionals who want a place in his cabinet to send him their biographies through a social media address he said he would later publicise. "It will be called 'the government of hope'," he declared, and it would strive to achieve security, prosperity and a life with dignity for the Sudanese. Nearly a month after he was appointed Prime Minister, only two positions in his proposed cabinet of 22 have been filled: the interior and defence portfolios, whose occupants are traditionally picked by the military. "The government of hope is a fragile and elitist project," said Mr Fadlallah. "Idris seeks to formulate a new reality that's immune to the present situation, while Dagalo wants to enshrine the outcome of the war thus far." Sudan, a nation of 50 million, has been plagued by a series of civil wars and economic crises since its independence in 1956. Compounding its woes have been frequent military coups, ushering in authoritarian regimes invariably toppled by uprisings brought brief spells of democratic government. The current civil war in Sudan is, in large part, a continuation of that pattern. Gen Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo together staged a coup in 2021 that removed the transitional government that followed Al Bashir's downfall in 2019. The coup derailed the nation's shift to democratic rule and drew international sanctions that battered the economy, just as it was showing signs of recovery, albeit slowly. Differences between the two generals over the role of the army and the RSF in a democratic Sudan grew ominously tense in 2022 before violence broke out in April 2023. Both the army and the RSF are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity during their war.
Khaleej Times
13 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
Myanmar junta chief confirms year-end election plan
Myanmar's junta chief said the country plans to hold elections in December and January, state media reported Thursday, pressing ahead with polls denounced as a sham by international monitors. The military deposed Myanmar's civilian government in a 2021 coup which sparked a many-sided civil war, but has promoted its election plans as a pathway to peace. With members of the former government locked away, opposition groups set to boycott the vote and huge tracts of the country controlled by anti-junta rebels, observers say a fair poll is impossible. State newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar said junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, speaking at a conference in the capital Naypyidaw on Wednesday, "pledged that the election will be held in December this year and January next year". It is not clear whether the junta plans to hold the election in phases -- a potential sign it would struggle to guarantee security on a single nationwide polling day -- or whether the timetable includes a campaign period. On Wednesday, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the rights situation in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said the junta is "trying to create this mirage of an election exercise that will create a legitimate civilian government". "You cannot have an election when you imprison and torture and execute your opponents, when it is illegal to report the truth as a journalist, when it's illegal to speak out and criticise the junta," he told reporters in Geneva. Junta forces have suffered stinging territorial losses to pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic armed organisations in recent months. Military backing from China and Russia is letting it stave off defeat, analysts say, but huge areas of the country are set to be beyond the reach of any junta-organised democratic exercise. A junta census held last year to prepare for the poll admitted it could not collect data from an estimated 19 million of the country's 51 million people, in part because of "significant security constraints". "We are currently making the necessary preparations to hold the elections as widely and extensively as possible," Min Aung Hlaing said, according to a transcript of his conference speech in The Global New Light of Myanmar.
Khaleej Times
2 days ago
- Khaleej Times
AI fakes duel over Sara Duterte impeachment in Philippines
Days after the Philippine Senate declined to launch the impeachment trial of the country's vice president, two interviews with Filipinos arguing for and against the move went viral. Neither were real. The schoolboys and elderly woman making their cases were AI creations, examples of increasingly sophisticated fakes possible with even basic online tools. "Why single out the VP?", a digitally created boy in a white school uniform asks, arguing that the case was politically motivated. The House of Representatives impeached Sara Duterte in early February on charges of graft, corruption and an alleged assassination plot against former ally and running mate President Ferdinand Marcos. A guilty verdict in the Senate would result in her removal from office and a lifetime ban from Philippine politics. But after convening as an impeachment court on June 10, the senior body immediately sent the case back to the House, questioning its constitutionality. Duterte ally Senator Ronald dela Rosa shared the video of the schoolboys -- since viewed millions of times -- praising the youths for having a "better understanding of what's happening" than their adult counterparts. The vice president's younger brother Sebastian, mayor of family stronghold Davao, said the clip proved "liberals" did not have the support of the younger generation. When the schoolboys were exposed as digital creations, the vice president and her supporters were unfazed. "There's no problem with sharing an AI video in support of me. As long as it's not being turned into a business," Duterte told reporters. "Even if it's AI... I agree with the point," said Dela Rosa, the one-time enforcer of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte's drug war. - Five minutes' work - The video making the case for impeachment -- also with millions of views -- depicts an elderly woman peddling fish and calling out the Senate for failing to hold a trial. "You 18 senators, when it's the poor who steal, you want them locked up immediately, no questions asked. But if it's the vice president who stole millions, you protect her fiercely," she says in Tagalog. Both clips bore a barely discernible watermark for the Google video-generation platform Veo. AFP fact-checkers also identified visual inconsistencies, such as overly smooth hair and teeth and storefronts with garbled signage. The man who created the fish peddler video, Bernard Senocip, 34, told AFP it took about five minutes to produce the eight-second clip. Reached via his Facebook page, Senocip defended his work in a video call, saying AI characters allowed people to express their opinions while avoiding the "harsh criticism" frequent on social media. "As long as you know your limitations and you're not misleading your viewers, I think it's fine," he said, noting that -- unlike the Facebook version -- he had placed a "created by AI" tag on the video's TikTok upload. While AFP has previously reported on websites using hot-button Philippine issues to generate cash, Senocip said his work was simply a way of expressing his political opinions. The schoolboy video's creator, the anonymous administrator of popular Facebook page Ay Grabe, declined to be interviewed but said his AI creations' opinions had been taken from real-life students. AFP, along with other media outlets, is paid by some platforms including Meta, Google and TikTok for work tackling disinformation. 'Grey area' Using AI to push viewpoints via seemingly ordinary people can make beliefs seem "more popular than they actually are", said Jose Mari Lanuza of Sigla Research Center, a non-profit organisation that studies disinformation. "In the case of the impeachment, this content fosters distrust not only towards particular lawmakers but towards the impeachment process." While some AI firms have developed measures to protect public figures, Jose Miguelito Enriquez, an associate research fellow at Nanyang Technological University, said the recent Philippine videos were a different animal. "Some AI companies like OpenAI previously committed to prevent users from generating deepfakes of 'real people', including political candidates," he said. "But... these man-on-the-street interviews represent a grey area because technically they are not using the likeness of an actual living person." Crafting realistic "humans" was also getting easier, said Dominic Ligot, founder of Data and AI Ethics PH. "Veo is only the latest in a string of rapidly evolving tools for AI media generation," he said, adding the newest version produced "smoother, more realistic motion and depth compared to earlier AI video models". Google did not reply when AFP asked if they had developed safeguards to prevent Veo from being used to push misinformation. For Ligot, guardrails around the swiftly evolving technology are a must, warning AI was increasingly being used to "influence how real people feel, pressure decision-makers and distort democratic discourse".
