Myanmar’s military junta announced a mass amnesty on 2–3 March, pardoning 7,337 prisoners and closing/withdrawing counterterrorism-law cases for 12,487 others (including some tried in absentia). Reporting described the move as timed to gain public sympathy ahead of parliament’s reconvening after the junta-run elections, with releases including at least some political detainees and journalists. The junta has frequently announced amnesties throughout its time in power, but rarely on this scale. In November 2025 a similar amnesty resulted in the release of 3,085 prisoners and charges being dropped against another 5,500. However, the amnesties have not included the highest-profile political prisoners and are broadly understood to be an attempt by the junta to gain ‘legitimacy’ with the general public, and many thousands of prisoners remain.

Sources: The Diplomat, JURIST, ISP-Myanmar, Committee to Protect Journalists 

Myanmar’s military junta reported that it received an overwhelming majority of votes in staged elections it conducted from 28 December 2025 to 25 January as an attempt to support its claim to be the country’s legitimate government. The junta did not control enough of the country to hold elections nationwide and leading political parties from the government overthrown in the 2023 coup either refused, or were not permitted, to participate. Prior to the election, authorities charged at least 229 individuals with violating election laws for allegedly opposing or disrupting the vote, including pro-democracy activists and critics of the military. The process was broadly met with international and domestic criticism and refusal to acknowledge the results, with the exception of China. 

Sources: Nikkei Asia , International Crisis Group, Straits Times 

The military junta’s sixty-day campaign period for its illegitimate election began on 28 October, ushering in a new period of uncertainty and restrictions of speech. On 31 October, the junta announced it had arrested 88 people for criticizing the election under a law passed in July 2025 granting it wide-reaching authority to punish ‘disruption’ of the electoral process. The specific grounds for most of the arrests were unclear but included in the junta’s count were two directors of a junta propaganda film who reportedly ‘liked’ a local media outlet’s social media post. Junta-aligned media also reported that at least one election candidate had been detained by an unnamed resistance organization.

Sources: The Irrawaddy, Article 19, Al Jazeera, International IDEA

A report based in satellite data has documented a surge of unregulated rare earth, gold, silver and other mines, predominantly in Myanmar. Unregulated mining has increased significantly since the 2021 military coup, which both decimated the country’s formal economy and fractured effective control and oversight of natural resources between the military junta, the legitimate democratic government and ethnic armed organizations. The mines appear to be leaching hazardous minerals and chemicals into rivers that provide water to much of Southeast Asia, and unsafe levels of arsenic have been found in rivers in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. The work in unlicensed and unregulated mining operations is also hazardous for workers, who suffer from respiratory issues, the risk of collapse and flooding, and a lack of recourse when accidents or labour rights violations occur.

Sources: Stimson Center, Yale Environment 360

Myanmar’s military junta announced it would hold a national election on 28 December 2025, the first since it seized power in a coup in February 2021. The move is part of the junta’s effort to legitimize its claim on power through what the United Nations, the National Unity Government, and other domestic and international observers agree is a sham election. Given the lack of international legitimacy and the limited control the junta exercises over the country, the impact on the country’s politics and security are highly unpredictable and potentially volatile. While the junta announced an end to the national state of emergency, which it had used to rule by emergency decree since the coup, it also announced 63 local states of emergency, and there are no public indications of a meaningful return to constitutional rule. An additional law passed on 30 July punishes any ‘disruption’ of the electoral process, broadly defined to include speech or distributing critical texts, with three to ten years imprisonment.

Sources: France24, The Diplomat (1), The Irrawaddy, British Broadcasting Corporation, The Diplomat (2), Associated Press, International IDEA