Power in Myanmar has long been measured in bullets, not ballots. Yet this winter, the same generals who once dismissed democracy as a threat to order are preparing for elections, hoping to claim a veneer of legitimacy through the ritual of the vote. The coming polls, set to stretch from December into February, are being held in a country half-consumed by war. The Tatmadaw controls roughly half of Myanmar’s territory; ethnic armies dominate much of the rest.

Entire regions in Rakhine, Kachin, Chin, and northern Shan are effectively autonomous zones under the rebel command. What remains outside the majority Barman community-dominated lowlands in the south are contested grey areas where neither side holds sway for long and the reach of the state ends where its convoys stop.

Even the Junta’s

See Full Page