YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar’s junta said Monday that long-promised elections will start on 28 December, despite a raging civil war that has put much of the country out of its control, and international monitors slating the poll as a charade.

Myanmar has been consumed by conflict since the military deposed the government of democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, making unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.

Swathes of the country are beyond military control — administered by a myriad of pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic armed organizations which have pledged to block polls in their enclaves.

“The first phase of the multi-party democratic general election for each parliament will begin on Sunday 28 December 2025,” Myanmar’s Union Election Commission said in a statement.

“Dates for the subsequent phases will be announced later,” the statement added.

Myanmar’s civil war has killed thousands, left more than half the nation in poverty, and more than 3.5 million people living displaced.

The junta has touted elections as a way to end the conflict and offered cash rewards to opposition fighters willing to lay down their arms ahead of the vote.

However Suu Kyi remains jailed, while many opposition lawmakers ousted by the coup are boycotting it and a United Nations expert has branded the vote a “fraud” designed to rebrand continuing military rule.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is currently ruling Myanmar as acting president, also serving as the chief of the armed forces which has ruled the country for most of its post-independence history.

Analysts say the election will likely see Min Aung Hlaing maintain his power over any new government.

Meanhile, they say, the vote may cause further splits in already fractious array of opposition groups as they weigh whether to participate in the poll.

A census held last year as preparation for the election estimated it failed to collect data from 19 million of the country’s 51 million people, provisional results said.

The results cited “significant security constraints” as one reason for the shortfall — giving a sign of how limited the reach of the election may be amid the civil war.