Myanmar's military regime leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing promised a "free and fair" election during the start of voting in the 2025-26 elections on Dec. 28, but citizens are speaking out about fear, intimidation, and forced voter turnout.

As the final two rounds of voting continues on Jan. 11 and Jan. 25, criticism and concerns over how ballot boxes containing advanced votes and ballots cast in the first round of voting were handled by the regime's Union Election Commission (UEC) have been shared with DVB.

Preliminary results released by the UEC shows the military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) winning a majority of the seats nationwide.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which defeated the USDP in back-to-back landslide election victories in 2015 and 2020 but ousted in the 2021 military coup, refused to re-register with the UEC in 2023 and was officially disbanded.

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