Htet, raised a sign reading “Reject the Illegal Election” outside Yangon City Hall during the junta boss’s visit to “inspect” polling stations. Junta forces swiftly arrested him. 51 Beyond peaceful protests, resistance groups attacked polling stations and pro-junta party offices before polls opened in every phase of the sham election. During 25 Dec 2025 - 30 Jan 2026, there were at least 23 resistance attacks on sham polling infrastructure, including polling stations, UEC convoys, and junta allied party offices. On 6 Jan, in Myothit Township (Magway Region), the Naypyidaw People’s Defence Force (PDF) ambushed a convoy carrying a top junta UEC official and killed his assistant, a township police chief, and several officers. An election official admitted that the attack had sparked panic within the regime’s election commission.52 Shortly after, in Htantabin Township (Bago Region), a resistance group conducted drone strikes on a junta office and killed a UEC assistant director. 53 On 27 Jan, in Aungmyaythazan Township (Mandalay Region), joint resistance forces launched a coordinated rocket attack on the Central Regional Military Command (RMC) targeting coup leader Min Aung Hlaing. Min Aung Hlaing was staying at the RMC while reportedly performing a superstitious ritual after scrutinizing the polls. It is unknown if there were any casualties. 54 International Response ● The international community overwhelmingly rejects the election - Japan calls it “eyewash”, some dismiss it as a “joke.” ● ASEAN finally commits to reject the results, and keep the junta at arm's length. ● Regime ambiguous on election observers; India publicly denies attendance. The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) concluded that the “deeply flawed” process failed to meet even the “minimum requirements for democratic participation or credible electoral processes.” ANFREL joined other international bodies, organizations, and states, including the UN, the EU, FIDH, Human Rights Watch, Japan, and New Zealand, to demand that the international community reject the illegitimate election. The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) stated that the people of Burma had overwhelmingly rejected the sham polls and described the first phase as a “joke.”55 Notably, Japan publicly dismissed the fraudulent process as “eyewash.” Japan had previously bent over backwards to support the junta’s sham election narrative. 56 51 New Day Myanmar (12 Jan 2026) ပမ ြို့တ တာ်ခန်းမတရ ြို့ မာ တကိုယ်တတာ်ဆနဒပပသညို့် လူငယ်တဦ်းဖမ််း ဆီ်းခ 52 Myanmar Now (7 Jan 2026) Myanmar election official escapes ambush near Naypyitaw; several others dead Irrawaddy (11 Jan 2026) Myanmar Junta Election Official Killed as Blasts Rock Bago Region 54 Narinjara (27 Jan 2026) ဗိုလ်ချ ပ်မ်းကကီ်း မင်းတအာင်လင်တည်းခိုတနသညို့် အလယ်ပိုင်း တိုင်းစစ်ဌာနချ ပ် ၁၀၇ မမ တရာို့ တိုက် ်းို မျာ်းပဖငို့် 53 ထပ်မတိုက်ခိုက်ခ 55 BBC Burmese (11 Jan 2026) ‘‘စစ် တ ််လို ််ယနတွဲ်ူ် ို့အတိုအယ တ််ာင်ယ ်် ်းယတကာက် ်ွ်ဲက ််ိုခ က်ခ င်း ် ််ပ် ််ိုန ််ိုင်င တတကာ ်ူ် ို့ ကယတတာင်းဆ ် ််ိုသင် တူ ််ို့ ’’ - SAC- M 56 Myanmar Now (14 Jun 2023) Japan needs to sack Sasakawa and stand with the people of Myanmar ; Irrawaddy via Facebook (31 Jan 2026) Japan dismisses Myanmar election as eyewash 11