{"id":75769,"date":"2025-12-28T10:19:45","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T01:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/dec\/28\/myanmar-elections-voting-begins-under-junta-stranglehold-with-aung-san-suu-kyi-banned"},"modified":"2025-12-28T22:58:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T13:58:26","slug":"myanmar-elections-voting-begins-under-junta-stranglehold-with-aung-san-suu-kyi-banned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=75769","title":{"rendered":"Polls close in first phase of Myanmar elections widely condemned as a sham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Turnout appears low for vote in which most candidates seen as allies of junta and large areas excluded by war<\/p>\n<p>Polls have closed in conflict-racked Myanmar, ending the first phase of an election that has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/dec\/24\/myanmars-first-election-since-the-2021-coup-everything-you-need-to-know\">widely condemned as a sham<\/a> designed to legitimise the military junta\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n<p>The military has touted the vote as a return to democracy almost five years after it seized power in a coup, ousting the country\u2019s then de-facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, detaining her and sparking a spiralling civil war.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/dec\/28\/myanmar-elections-voting-begins-under-junta-stranglehold-with-aung-san-suu-kyi-banned\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turnout appears low for vote in which most candidates seen as allies of junta and large areas excluded by warPolls have closed in conflict-racked Myanmar, ending the first phase of an election that has been widely condemned as a sham designed to legiti&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5130,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,919,82,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-aung-san-suu-kyi","category-myanmar","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75769"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75782,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75769\/revisions\/75782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}