{"id":75854,"date":"2026-01-03T12:53:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T03:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/03\/myanmar-election-first-phase-election-result"},"modified":"2026-01-03T12:53:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T03:53:36","slug":"military-backed-party-in-myanmar-takes-lead-in-contentious-first-election-since-coup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=75854","title":{"rendered":"Military-backed party in Myanmar takes lead in contentious first election since coup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Junta says turnout in first vote in five years is 52%, which observers have described as low compared to past polls<\/p>\n<p>Myanmar\u2019s military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party (USDP) is leading after the first phase of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/02\/inside-myanmar-sham-election\">contentious general election<\/a>, early results cited by state media showed, in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/dec\/24\/myanmars-first-election-since-the-2021-coup-everything-you-need-to-know\">first vote since a 2021 coup<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Having sparked a nationwide rebellion after crushing pro-democracy protests in the wake of its coup, the ruling junta has said the three-phase vote would bring political stability to the impoverished nation.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/03\/myanmar-election-first-phase-election-result\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Junta says turnout in first vote in five years is 52%, which observers have described as low compared to past pollsMyanmar\u2019s military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party (USDP) is leading after the first phase of a contentious general electio&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"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":[919,82,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","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\/75854","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\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75855,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75854\/revisions\/75855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}