Myanmar's dominant pro-military party claimed an overwhelming victory in the first phase of the country's junta-run elections, a senior party official told AFP on Sunday, after democracy watchdogs warned the poll would entrench military rule.
The armed forces snatched power in a 2021 coup, but on Dec. 28 opened voting in a phased month-long election they pledge will return power to the people.
"We won 82 lower house seats in townships which have finished counting, out of the total of 102," a senior official of the Union Solidarity and Development Party told AFP.
The party won all eight townships in the capital Naypyidaw, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to officially disclose the results.
At the last poll in 2020 the USDP was trounced by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), which was dissolved after the coup and did not appear on Dec. 28's ballots.
The Nobel laureate has been in detention since the putsch, which triggered a civil war.
Campaigners, Western diplomats and the United Nations' rights chief have condemned the vote, citing a stark crackdown on dissent and a candidate list stacked with military allies.
Official results have yet to be posted by Myanmar's Union Election Commission and two more phases are scheduled for Jan. 11 and 25.
"My view on the election is clear: I don't trust it at all," Yangon resident Min Khant said yesterday.
"We have been living under a dictatorship," said the 28-year-old. "Even if they do hold elections, I don't think anything good will come of them because they always lie."
Many analysts describe the USDP as a civilian proxy of the military, saying former officers serve in senior leadership roles.
