Myanmar's election in numbers
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Kim Aris, the son of Aung San Suu Kyi, delivers a speech during a protest rally organized by Myanmar people residing in Japan denouncing an upcoming election led by the military junta and demanding the immediate release of Myanmar's detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, outside Myanmar's embassy in Tokyo, Japan, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Issei Kato
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Dec 26 - Myanmar will hold the first round of voting in a general election on Sunday in what its military government says will usher in a return to civilian rule following a 2021 coup.
Following are facts and figures on elections in Myanmar:
- 4 national elections have been held in Myanmar in the past 35 years, but only two - in 2010 and 2015 - resulted in the formation of elected governments. The 2020 election was annulled by a military junta, as was a 1990 ballot - 20 years after it took place and was ignored.
- 4,963 candidates have registered for this election.
- 6 parties will take part nationwide and 51 will vie for seats in a single region or state.
- 40 parties were dissolved in 2023 for failing to register for the election, including the former ruling National League for Democracy, whose government was ousted in 2021.
- 1,018, or one-fifth the candidates running, are from the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party
- 3 rounds of voting are scheduled - December 28, January 11 and January 25.
- 265 of Myanmar's 330 townships will hold voting in the three rounds. It is unclear when or if the rest will be contested, with a civil war raging in many areas. No dates have been set for counting of votes or announcement of results.
- 664 seats are available in the bicameral parliament, with 440 in the lower house and 224 in the upper house.
- 25 percent of seats in both chambers are allocated to serving military personnel appointed by the armed forces chief, a quota set out in the 2008 constitution under Myanmar's quasi-civilian political system.
- 90 days is the period after the election when a new parliament must convene. Its members will choose speakers, then later elect a president as head of state, who then forms a government. REUTERS
