Campaigning has begun in military-run Myanmar, two months ahead of an election being widely dismissed at home and abroad as a transparent bid to confer legitimacy on the army’s 2021 seizure of power.

The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) held events on Tuesday in the capital Naypyitaw and in Yangon, the country’s largest city, to launch its campaign.

Voting is set to begin on December 28 in an election that rights groups like Human Rights Watch have dismissed as a “sham” and that the European Commission has ruled out sending observers to, saying it will be neither free nor fair.

Opposition parties disbanded

Myanmar’s ruling government has touted elections as a path to reconciliation in a country riven by civil war since it grabbed power in a 2021 coup, dep

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