The regime’s Union Election Commission (UEC) announced on Thursday that the third and final phase of the 2025-26 elections will take place in a total of 63 townships across Myanmar on Jan. 25, 2026. Seventeen townships in Yangon Region will be included.
Kyaukme and Hsipaw townships in northern Shan State, which were recaptured by regime forces from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) Oct. 1-17, will also be included in the third phase. The TNLA had seized the two townships in August and October 2024.
Ayeyarwady Region’s Lemyethna Township, where there’s fighting between regime forces and resistance forces led by the Arakan Army (AA), is another one of the 63 townships that will have voting on Jan. 25.
Kachin State’s Bhamo Township, where a year-long battle for control between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and regime forces has been ongoing since Dec. 4, 2024, is also included in the third phase of voting.
The first phase of the regime elections will take place in 102 townships on Dec. 28 and the second phase will have polls in an additional 100 townships nationwide on Jan. 11, 2026. The other 28 of Yangon’s total 45 townships will be included in phases one and two.
Min Aung Hlaing told attendees at the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) 10th anniversary ceremony in Naypyidaw on Oct. 15 that the regime elections would be held in three phases.
The two previous elections in 2015 and 2020 were held on one day, Nov. 8. They were considered free and fair by international election observers. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party won those two elections in back-to-back landslide victories, but was ousted from government during the military coup on Feb. 1, 2021.
Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint have been held in detention ever since and the NLD party was dissolved by the UEC, which was reformed by the regime after the coup, for not re-registering.
The UEC announced that elections could not be held in 56 townships nationwide. It also disqualified 86 of the 4,963 registered candidates on Oct. 20.
The NLD, along with the National Unity Government (NUG), which represents NLD lawmakers ousted in the 2021 coup, and the Women’s League of Burma (WLB), which represents Myanmar women’s groups, have called on citizens to boycott and reject the regime elections.
