Myanmar has been included in the International Crisis Group’s 2023 Watch List of ten countries and regions facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2023.

The International Crisis Group is an independent organisation working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world.

Crisis Group says that it sounds the alarm to prevent deadly conflict by building support for good governance and inclusive politics that enable societies to flourish. It engages directly with a range of conflict actors to seek and share information, and to encourage intelligent action for peace.

In the Myanmar section of the Watch List, Myanmar: Post-Coup Crisis and a Flawed Election, Crisis Group says Two years after the 1 February 2021 coup d’état, Myanmar remains in deep crisis, with the economy moribund and millions in need of humanitarian assistance.

Despite the security forces ’brutal repression of dissent, widespread popular resistance to the regime continues, by non-violent and violent means, across much of the country.

Conflict has also escalated in several of the country’s ethnic areas where armed groups have confronted the security forces, and in the current environment there remains no realistic prospect of repatriating more than one million ethnic Rohingya who fled violence in Rakhine State and have taken refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.

While Crisis Group research and macro-economic indicators show the economy exhibiting signs of stabilisation, it remains some 20 per cent smaller than before the coup, and poverty rates have surged, compounding an already dire humanitarian situation.

Health and education systems remain in disarray, and more than 1.5 million people are internally displaced, the vast majority due to post-coup conflict.

Also contributing to the severe humanitarian crisis are new restrictions on non-governmental organisations that are likely to curtail even further their already very limited access to those most in need.

Against this backdrop, the regime is gearing up to hold elections – likely in mid-2023 – that it presents as a return to civilian rule although its objective seems to be to consolidate its control by making a transition from emergency rule to a longer-term military-backed government.

In the current circumstances, there is no prospect that these polls will be credible, and the risk that they will be marked by considerable violence is very high.

Crisis group believes that the European Union (EU) and its member states can help address the crisis in Myanmar by:

Making very clear that the junta has not created the conditions for credible elections in the coming year, and working with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other allies in the region to build an international consensus and common messaging in this regard;

Using all available channels to avert election-related violence, including by working through actors with greater capacity to influence the junta, such as the UN Security Council, ASEAN, India, Japan and China, and by pressing the National Unity Government to issue a set of principles – well ahead of the polls – opposing violence against electoral targets;

Maintaining and expanding targeted sanctions on the regime, the military and their business interests, while avoiding actions that would mainly affect ordinary people. In particular, Myanmar’s access to the Everything but Arms trade preferences scheme, which supports the jobs of hundreds of thousands of mainly female garment workers but provides little benefit to the regime, should not be revoked;

Continuing to engage closely with the National Unity Government as well as other key stakeholders, including ethnic armed groups and civil society, who will continue to shape the country’s internal dynamics;

Channelling aid to address both the current humanitarian emergencies and longer-term needs relating to health, education and livelihoods, through the mechanisms and partners that can most effectively reach those in need – including working more closely with local NGOs, providing cross-border assistance where appropriate, and potentially supporting the service delivery wings of the better established ethnic armed groups.

Crisis Group believes that there is no likely pathway back to civilian rule and that Myanmar’s post-coup crisis shows no sign of being resolved in the near term.

The junta continues to deploy extreme levels of political repression and violence to maintain its grip on power, while much of the country continues its determined resistance to military rule by both violent and non-violent means.

With both sides intent on prevailing by force, there is so far no prospect of a negotiated settlement.

The regime has indicated that it will hold elections in 2023, likely before the 1 August deadline imposed by the constitution – which the military claims to be adhering to, despite the manifest unconstitutionality of the coup itself.

The regime has presented the coming elections as a return to civilian rule and therefore a pathway out of the current crisis, but in reality, they appear intended to entrench a military-backed administration. The National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide in the 2020 elections, only to be ousted from power months later, will not be willing (or even likely allowed) to participate and the military is reinvigorating the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) as its electoral vehicle.

With the vast majority of the population unwilling to participate in these polls, and with opposition forces intent on disrupting them, the elections are becoming a flashpoint for further violence, while further entrenching older ex-military men in positions of power, at a time when broader social shifts triggered by the coup have opened space for younger leaders, especially women, to emerge.

Crisis Group believes that the regime is likely to ratchet up repression ahead of the polls, as it pressures parties, candidates and voters to participate in a fraudulent election, punishes those who refuse to do so, and deploys the military to try pacifying insecure areas so that polling can proceed there.

The election will also be a target for resistance forces, some of which are already violently opposing it. Improvised explosive device attacks and assassinations of administrative officials and alleged regime informants have become common resistance tactics over the last two years, and some groups are likely to deploy them against candidates, polling stations, poll workers, political parties and voters, among other targets.

There have already been deadly attacks on teams collecting civil data for voter lists. Schools could become a particular focus of violence if, as in previous elections, most polling stations are located in schools with schoolteachers serving as the majority of the poll workers.

Post-coup repression, violence and conflict, along with economic decline, have triggered a major humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. Some 1.1 million people have been displaced since the coup, bringing the country’s total internally displaced population to 1.5 million. Millions more have plunged into poverty.

To make things worse, as it seeks to control civic space, the regime has increasingly restricted the activities of international and local humanitarian organisations, limiting their access to banking services, severely constraining their access to parts of the country affected by conflict and insecurity and, more recently, imposing onerous registration requirements that will make it even more difficult to operate.

Meanwhile, the over one million Rohingya refugees who in 2017 and before fled waves of mass violence in Rakhine State and now live in Bangladesh – primarily in camps in the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar – continue to face an uncertain future.

With the military now running Myanmar, and a fraught humanitarian and conflict situation in Rakhine State, there is no realistic prospect of mass returns in the foreseeable future. The prevailing sense of despair in the camps is prompting thousands to undertake dangerous sea journeys at the hands of human traffickers to try to reach South East Asia. Increasing numbers of Rohingya boys and young men are also joining armed groups running the illicit economy of the camps.

Meanwhile, donor fatigue is making it increasingly difficult to raise the funds to provide for their essential needs (the UN humanitarian appeal was only 49 per cent funded in 2022, compared with 72 per cent the previous year), and Bangladeshi authorities are growing more and more impatient at the lack of any prospect of repatriation or other durable solutions.