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The military seized power in 2021 after making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud, and has since arrested and killed thousands and banned political parties in a sweeping crackdown on dissent.

It has said it will hold fresh polls, likely in 2025, even as it has lost territory across the country to established ethnic rebel groups and newer “People’s Defence Forces” formed since the coup.

It is currently “impossible to imagine conducting a free election” in Myanmar, US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack told reporters.

Any poll would “simply be an election that will return them (the military) to power”, said Dr Van Schaack, who advises the US government on responses to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

With clashes in almost every region of the country, “it is hard to imagine even just logistically how one would administer an election, no less do so in a way that is fair”, she said.

State media said on Oct 9 that junta chief Min Aung Hlaing “clearly reaffirmed” the military’s plans to hold elections.

The military has pushed back a timetable for fresh polls several times, and in March the top general hinted that any vote may not take place nationwide due to the conflict.

Junta officials are currently conducting a national census, which is seen as a prerequisite to any new polls.

Any vote would not feature Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s hugely popular National League for Democracy party, which was dissolved by the junta-stacked election commission in 2023.

In August, China’s Foreign Minister said Beijing supports the military’s plan to hold fresh elections and return the conflict-torn country to a “democratic transition”.

The civil war in Myanmar dominated discussions at a summit of Asean in Laos on Oct 10.

Leaders of the 10-nation bloc – of which Myanmar is a member – condemned the military’s efforts to implement a peace plan as “substantially inadequate”, according to a draft summit statement seen by AFP. AFP