Myanmar pro-military party dominates junta-run poll

Myanmar's pro-military party has a decisive lead in the first phase of junta-run elections, with the USDP winning 90 percent of the lower house seats announced so far, official results published in state media showed.

The military grabbed power in a 2021 putsch that triggered civil war, pitting pro-democracy rebels against junta forces for control of the country.

Myanmar's junta opened voting in the phased month-long election a week ago, with its leaders pledging the poll would bring on democracy. However, rights advocates and Western diplomats have condemned it as a sham and a rebranding of martial rule.

The dominant pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has won 87 of the 96 lower house seats announced, according to partial results from the Union Election Commission (UEC) released on Saturday and Sunday in state media.

Six ethnic minority parties picked up nine seats.

The winners of six more townships have yet to be announced in the first phase of voting. Two more phases are scheduled for January 11 and 25.

The USDP — which many analysts describe as a civilian proxy of the military — claimed an overwhelming victory in the first phase last week.

The massively popular but dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) of democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi did not appear on ballots, and she has been jailed since the coup.

The military overturned the results of the last poll in 2020 after the NLD defeated the USDP by a landslide.