Sawt Falasteen - Campaigning begins in Myanmar's junta-run election

Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup, deposing and jailing democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi after her party won the last election by wide margins.

The junta has lost swathes of the country to pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic-minority armed factions, but has touted elections as a path to reconciliation.

Rebels have pledged to boycott the vote in huge enclaves they control, while human rights groups and a UN expert have denounced the poll's restrictive conditions in junta-held zones.

"This election means nothing to me," said one 60-year-old man in Sittwe city, the capital of western Rakhine state. "It is not a genuine election and I see no one supporting it."

"People are struggling with their own problems," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons in a region where fighting has triggered a humanitarian crisis.

"I see more and more beggars in town as people are starving. People have no jobs and so the election seems like a distant prospect. They have no time to be interested in it."

There will be 57 parties on the ballot when polls take place in phases beginning on December 28.

Suu Kyi's vastly popular National League for Democracy -- which won 82 percent of elected seats in the last poll in 2020 -- will not be among them, because the junta dissolved the party after jailing her and making unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud.

- 'Not very interested' -

The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party plans to begin its campaign by unveiling election billboards in the capital Naypyidaw, while party adverts will air on state media in the evening.

However campaigning is expected to be generally low-key with high security amid the civil war.

"It is unlikely I will go for voting and I have no idea if I am on the voter list," said one civilian displaced by fighting to the central city of Mandalay, speaking anonymously for security reasons.

"We are not very interested," he added. "We just want to go home."

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will not send observers to the election, diplomatic sources told AFP on Monday.

Numerous rights groups lobbied the 11-nation bloc to hold back monitors, lest they lend legitimacy to a vote which they say is critically flawed.

The military government has introduced laws punishing those who protest against the election with up to a decade in prison, and new cybercrime laws police the internet for communications that "disrupt unity".

The junta has conceded elections will not take place in one in seven national parliament constituencies, many of them active war zones, while martial law remains in place in one in five townships.

Q.Jaber--SF-PST