JOINT STATEMENT
We, the undersigned trade unions, civil society, and human rights organisations from across the ASEAN region and international community, issue this urgent and unequivocal call to our governments ahead of the upcoming ASEAN Summit: outrightly reject the Myanmar military junta’s planned sham election. Anything less would be a betrayal of the people of Myanmar and a stain on the conscience of our entire region.
The junta’s planned election on 28 December 2025 is an illegal, cynical ploy to manufacture a façade of legitimacy for its rule of terror. This is the same military that defied the people’s landslide verdict in 1990 and staged the fraudulent 2010 polls to disguise dictatorship as reform. To believe its promises now is to wilfully disregard history.
A genuine election cannot take place amid mass killings and repression. It is a charade held under the barrel of a gun. The junta has waged war on its own people, killing over 7,300 civilians, arbitrarily detaining more than 29,000, and displacing over 3.5 million. It has outlawed legitimate political parties, imprisoned and tortured democratic leaders, and enacted draconian electoral laws that impose the death penalty for dissent. As the UN Special Rapporteur stated, this is not an election, but a “fraud.” In fact, this process has nothing to do with the ASEAN Five-Point Consensus; it is a unilateral act of a murderous junta that will only exacerbate the conflict.
The international democratic community has taken a firm stand. The European Union has refused to send observers, calling the poll a “regime-sponsored” exercise with only one possible outcome. In Bangkok, parliamentarians from Ireland, the United States, Norway, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and New Zealand reaffirmed their unified rejection of the junta’s so-called election and called for global solidarity with Myanmar’s democracy movement. Respected electoral monitoring bodies, including International IDEA and ANFREL, have unequivocally rejected the junta’s planned election and called it falling short of democratic legitimacy. ASEAN cannot afford to isolate itself by becoming an enabler of this farce.
To grant any form of recognition to this process is to give the junta a green light for more atrocities. This is a regime that bombs villages on holy days and launches airstrikes in the aftermath of earthquakes. Endorsing its electoral charade will only prolong the suffering of millions and add legitimacy to the weapons and aviation fuel it uses to terrorise civilians.
ASEAN member states have a profound moral and international obligation to act. The historic ILO Resolution under Article 33, adopted in June 2025, explicitly calls on all governments to “review… the relations they may have with Myanmar military authorities” to ensure they do not “enable, facilitate or prolong” these gross violations. Likewise, UN Security Council Resolution 2669 and ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus demand an immediate end to violence. Failure to reject this election would render ASEAN complicit in the junta’s crimes against humanity.
The world is watching. ASEAN’s credibility—and its future as a community founded on peace, democracy, and human rights—is at stake. We therefore demand that our leaders issue a clear, firm, and unified statement rejecting the junta’s sham election and refusing to recognise its outcome. There must be no room for vague diplomatic language that the junta can manipulate for its propaganda.
We call specifically on Malaysia, as the 2025 ASEAN Chair, and on Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, to demonstrate moral leadership. As a lifelong champion of free and fair elections who has personally endured political persecution, his voice must be the loudest and consistent in upholding democratic values, not just in Malaysia, but across our region.
This is a call for moral clarity, a call to stand on the right side of history.
We urge all governments, institutions, and organisations of conscience to:
- UNEQUIVOCALLY REJECT the Myanmar junta’s sham election.
- REFUSE to send observers or provide any form of technical or political support.
- STAND FIRMLY in solidarity with the people of Myanmar and their legitimate democratic representatives.
Signed by over 300 organisations from across the international and ASEAN regions.