Predicting rights violations in Myanmar’s sham elections 8 October 2025 Introduction The military's 2025 general election is a strategic component of its war against the people of Myanmar, not a step towards democracy. A predictable blueprint of rights violations is already being perpetrated, based on the military's past conduct and its new repressive legal architecture. The enactment of draconian laws like the “Law Protecting Against the Obstruction, Hindrance, and Destruction of Multiparty Democratic General Elections” (Law No. 48/2025) and the arrests that followed confirm this. This report investigates the human rights violations already underway and those that are still to come in the election cycle. Before the election: violations of foundational rights The first phase of the military’s strategy involves the systematic violation of the foundational rights necessary for any democratic contest to occur. International law is clear that genuine elections require an environment of freedom and fairness, which the military's actions are designed to prevent. The military is actively violating the right to political participation (ICCPR Article 25) and the right to freedom of association (ICCPR Article 22). Through its 2023 Political Parties Registration Law, the military has engineered a process to permanently remove genuine opponents from the political landscape. By dissolving the National League for Democracy (NLD) and many other parties for refusing to register under its illegitimate authority, the military has already eliminated the victors of the 2020 election. This is a direct repeat of its 2010 strategy, when electoral laws were engineered to bar anyone serving a prison sentence from party membership. The military is using these laws to disqualify any credible opposition figures, leveraging politically motivated convictions from its captive courts to legally bar them from public life. This denies people their right to be elected, which can only be restricted based on “objective and reasonable criteria,” not political persecution. In parallel, the military is violating the right to seek and receive information, an essential component of freedom of expression (ICCPR Article 19) and a prerequisite for voters to form opinions independently. State media has been converted into a propaganda apparatus, while independent