Myanmar’s military-backed political party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), has claimed victory in a majority of seats in the country’s junta-run parliamentary election, according to a senior party official quoted by AFP on Tuesday.
The claim follows the second phase of voting held on Sunday, where the USDP said it won 87 out of 100 contested seats. Due to restrictions on official result disclosures, the official spoke on condition of anonymity. Combined with gains from the first phase, the party now claims 176 seats in the lower house out of 330 elected seats—just over the halfway mark—despite the final phase of voting yet to be held on January 25.
Democracy monitoring groups and rights organizations have widely criticized the election, describing it as “staged” and designed to prolong military rule. Myanmar has remained largely under military control since independence, with only a brief democratic transition under Aung San Suu Kyi that ended with the 2021 military coup.
Following the coup, Suu Kyi was detained and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was dissolved. Since then, Myanmar has descended into a prolonged civil conflict. Pro-democracy groups argue that the exclusion of opposition parties and suppression of dissent have stripped the election of any credibility.
UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said last week that the junta was strategically engineering the election to legitimize military dominance and install its allies in power.
Myanmar’s lower house has a total of 440 seats, of which 110 are constitutionally reserved for the military. Analysts note that many USDP leaders are former military officers, reinforcing the party’s role as the armed forces’ primary political vehicle.
The new parliament is expected to convene in March, when members of both houses will jointly elect a president. Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has not ruled out relinquishing his military post to assume a civilian leadership role.
