00:00On Sunday morning, polls opened across a whole swathe of Myanmar for general elections
00:05after five years of military rule.
00:10We're satisfied. Voting is better than not voting.
00:14It would be weird to sit by and do nothing.
00:18But with the country's most recent elected leader still in detention,
00:22analysts question the junta's motives.
00:24This is not about public consultation.
00:29This is about engineering an outcome where the military's favoured party wins a landslide.
00:36Phase one did see a landslide for the USDP, the army's favoured party,
00:41with relatively low voter turnout at only 50%.
00:44And under a constitution dating from a previous era of military rule,
00:49a quarter of parliamentary seats will be reserved for the military,
00:53regardless of the popular vote.
00:54The army ousted state councillor Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021,
01:00claiming she owed her position to massive voter fraud,
01:03something international observers say there was no evidence for.
01:06The 2021 coup cast the country into a bloody civil war,
01:10with a death toll in the tens of thousands.
01:12I want things to improve for the population after these elections.
01:18We want to get back to a peaceful situation.
01:23Junta laws threaten those who protest or criticise the elections with up to a decade in prison.
01:29Former leader Suu Kyi has lost a great deal of credibility internationally,
01:34accused of inaction in the face of the Rohingya genocide,
01:36but remains the symbol of democracy in a country which has mostly known military rule since its independence.
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