'A distorted veneer of ‘democracy’ in Hong Kong and Myanmar', Benedict Rogers
Two of the world’s most repressive regimes must not be allowed to get away with 'sham' elections
This is a month of sham elections in Asia. Two of the region’s most repressive dictatorships — China’s Hong Kong regime and Myanmar’s military junta — are going to the polls, in a blatant attempt to legitimize their illegitimate rule.
On Dec. 7, Hong Kong will hold elections for its Legislative Council. But the poll will be conducted in what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime has termed a “patriots only” election. Only candidates proven to be loyal to the CCP are allowed to contest seats and must be approved by a government committee.
The number of directly-elected seats in Hong Kong’s 90-seat legislature was reduced from 35 to 20 in reforms imposed in 2021 — and only Beijing-approved candidates can run for them.
In addition, a Beijing-approved Election Committee will choose candidates for a further 40 seats, while the remaining 30 will be elected by “functional constituencies” representing professions and trades — such as the legal, accountancy, financial services, insurance, real estate, commercial, tourism, and other sectors, all stacked with pro-Beijing candidates.
In other words, this is a total stitch-up. It is nothing more than a rubber-stamp puppet parliament for the CCP.
On top of this, long-standing pro-Beijing legislators whom Beijing feels have had their day have been pressured to stand down. Former security secretary, Regina Ip, is just one of several veteran lawmakers who will not be contesting their seats next week, and it is widely believed they are retiring at the direction of Beijing to make way for the CCP’s handpicked candidates.
The elections will be held in a climate of severe repression. Over the past five years, Hong Kong’s basic freedoms have been torn up, and independent media and civil society shut down. The rule of law and independence of the judiciary have been undermined by draconian national security laws and increasingly direct control by Beijing.
Hong Kong’s promised autonomy and freedoms under the principle of “one country, two systems” enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, which paved the way for the 1997 handover of the city to China, have been dismantled.
In recent weeks, several arrests have been made on charges of “subversion” for encouraging a boycott of the sham elections. According to Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security Chris Tang, at least 35 cases related to attempts to sabotage the elections have been recorded by police, including damaging campaign posters. It is a violation of Hong Kong’s laws to incite voters to boycott or to spoil their ballot papers.
Nevertheless, turnout is expected to be low. In 2021, the first “patriots only” election, turnout fell to just 30.2 percent, a record low and almost half that of the previous poll in 2016. It is likely to fall further on Dec. 7.
Up until 2021, Hong Kong’s elections were contested by pro-democracy political parties, who won a significant number of seats. Until 2021, although the pro-Beijing camp always maintained an in-built majority in the legislature, elections were contested, vibrant, and generally regarded as free and fair.
Today, they are nothing more than a pantomime to choose automatons to sit in a local subsidiary of the CCP’s National People’s Congress. They are a little better than North Korean-style elections.
Exactly three weeks after Hong Kong’s fake elections, Myanmar’s military regime will hold the first round of its sham elections, on Dec. 28. A second phase will be held on Jan 11.
Myanmar’s “elections” are being held by an illegal junta that seized power in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, overthrowing the democratically elected and civilian-led government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), overwhelmingly won the last elections in 2020 and should today be preparing for the next general election.
Instead, she and most of her party colleagues are in jail, along with at least 22,000 other political prisoners. The NLD is one of over 40 political parties dissolved by the junta and banned from contesting the elections.
As in Hong Kong, Myanmar’s junta has criminalized criticism of the election through a new law enacted in July. Those who violate this law could face up to 20 years in prison or even the death penalty. So far, at least 94 people have been arrested under the new law — including four children.
According to Human Rights Watch, in September, a man was sentenced to seven years with hard labor for a Facebook post criticizing the junta, and in October, filmmakers Zambu Htun Thet Lwin and Aung Chan Lu were arrested for “liking” a Facebook post that criticized an election propaganda film.
Moreover, most of the country’s population will be disenfranchised because elections cannot be held in Myanmar’s conflict zones or regions under the control of the pro-democracy resistance groups. The regime has only been able to compile voter lists in 145 out of the country’s 330 townships.
The Union Election Commission declared in September that voting would not take place in 56 townships deemed “not conducive,” while the two phases announced thus far cover only 202 townships. The predominantly Muslim Rohingya, who have already endured a genocide since at least 2016, have been entirely omitted from the electoral record, and Rakhine State has been completely excluded.
At least four million people are internally displaced in Myanmar, and millions more are refugees abroad. Thousands of civilians live with the daily risk of airstrikes by the military regime, as Fortify Rights has documented in several recent reports, and according to the United Nations, over a third of the country’s population — 20 million — are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
On top of this, independent media and civil society have been shut down or forced to operate at grave risk from places of hiding or exile, while the rule of law is nonexistent.
These are not the conditions for a credible election. As Malaysia’s foreign minister Mohamed Hasan, in his capacity as chair of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), has made clear, the priority should be ending the conflict, charting a genuine path to peace, and addressing the humanitarian crisis, before any elections are held.
ASEAN has repeatedly reaffirmed its core message of “no elections without peace.” It should make it clear that it does not recognize the forthcoming elections and will not legitimize the process of the result. Others in the international community, particularly the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Australia, should do so too.
This is not a general election, but a selection of generals, and should be rejected as the sham and charade that it is.
Democracy around the world is under unprecedented assault, from external authoritarian threats as well as internal populist challenges. It is alarming to see two of the world’s most repressive regimes, China’s proxy police state in Hong Kong and Myanmar’s illegal military junta, weaponizing a distorted veneer of “democracy” to legitimize their crimes. They must not be allowed to get away with it.
This article was published in UCA News on 1 December 2025.
Photo: Iris Tong, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons