Zaw Min Htun responded to international criticism of junta’s sham elections

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On December 14, junta spokesman Zaw Min Htun responded to international pressure to condemn the junta’s sham elections held on December 28 and January 2026 as undemocratic.

He also hinted that military leader Min Aung Hlaing could join the leadership of the new government after the elections.

The junta is a criminal one for the 2021 coup that toppled the civilian government and jailed leaders, causing a civil war that has been burning across the country.

The junta is supervising the sham elections, which it said will help improve the country to democracy and end the civil war.

However, international democracy observers have described the election in Myanmar as a sham.

The United Nations, Britain and Thailand have called the elections neither free nor fair.

“The election is only for Myanmar. It is not for the international community,” Zaw Min Htun, a spokesman for the military junta, told a news conference in Yangon.

He also said, “Those who want to criticize can criticize. But our military will continue to work with the aim of returning to a multi-party democracy.”

Military dictatorship Min Aung Hlaing has ruled the country under martial law since a coup in February 2021.

Min Aung Hlaing ended emergency rule on this summer and handed power to the president before holding the election.

The interim president is himself.

“I made statements in the past that I will always use my experience for the country if the junta gives me a role,” Zaw Min Htun said.

The revolutionary forces are trying not to hold the election, and the military junta is increasingly violent for the upcoming election.

It has also introduced a new law that imposes prison sentences of 10 years to life for disrupting the election.

The National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide victory in the last election in 2020, has been dissolved and the party leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been unjustly imprisoned by a military junta for five years.

Reference-The Straits Times
Photo-The Straits Times