Thursday’s announcement of an end to the four-plus years of brutal state of emergency in Myanmar, with a promise of a general election, is a cynical move by the country’s military junta to gain international legitimacy. Underscoring the sham declaration, General Min Aung Hlaing has anointed himself the head of the election commission for a December ballot and threatened stringent punishment against those who defy the poll process. Myanmar’s opposition parties and international observers aren’t impressed and have called for a boycott of the polls.

General Aung Hlaing, who was sanctioned in 2019 by the US for his notorious role in the 2017 ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, who fled in their hundreds of thousands to neighbouring Bangladesh, seized power in........

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