1/9/26, 3:02 PM ‘We are always living in fear’: inside Myanmar’s ‘sham’ election | Myanmar | The Guardian with help from more experienced ethnic armed groups that have long demanded greater autonomy. By late 2023 war had spread across two-thirds of the country. Yangon is detached from the fierce conflict that is raging elsewhere in the country, where military air and drone strikes happen daily. Attacks have repeatedly been condemned as indiscriminate. Life in the city is fraught with anxiety, though. “Yangon isn’t like the old Yangon any more,” says an online influencer, who spoke under the pseudonym Hnin Sandar. “Yangon isn’t a happy place like before.” “My friends remind me, don’t talk about politics even in a taxi or on the bus because they are listening,” she adds. It is safer to keep your head down, and never to speak your mind, even about something non-political, she says: “I feel like I’m living in jail.” Images of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s most loved politician, which were once seen in shops, on the streets and government offices, have been removed. Generators sit on the sides of pavements, a reminder of how businesses have been forced to adapt, at great expense, to worsening power cuts. At night-time, the streets fall silent. Some young people stay until the early hours in bars and clubs that have been flooded with drugs, looking for a temporary escape from the country’s political turmoil. Most remain at home, terrified they could be arrested or taken by the authorities, and forced to serve the military in the country’s brutal civil war. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/02/inside-myanmar-sham-election 3/7