Myanmar’s election is “fundamentally flawed” and will not be fair because of censorship, arrests, and the fact hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are still banned from voting, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned. 

The November 8 poll will be “undermined by systemic problems and rights abuses that will deprive people of their right to fairly elect their government,” the group said in a statement on Monday. 

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled military attacks in Rakhine state in 2017 to shelter in Bangladesh will be unable to vote, while an estimated 600,000 remaining in Myanmar have also been disenfranchised since before the 2015 election. 

And government critics including dozens of students and an independent MP candidate have been arrested in recent months, the group noted. 

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It also criticised “unequal access” to state media, noting that smaller parties have been censored and denied adequate airtime while the National League for Democracy has used large state-owned platforms to promote itself. 

“It’s a milestone for Myanmar to be holding a second multiparty election, but however long the lines are to vote, this election will be fundamentally flawed,” said Brad Adams, HRW’s Asia director. 

He added: “The election can’t be free and fair so long as a quarter of the seats are reserved for the military, access to state media isn’t equal, government critics face censorship or arrest, and Rohingya are denied participation in the vote.”

Rohingya candidates have largely been denied the right to compete for seats, while Rakhine parties say campaigning restrictions aimed at curbing Covid-19, as well as the long-running internet shutdown, have severely hampered their ability to campaign. 

HRW also suggested authorities have used the Covid-19 pandemic as cover to erode independent media in Myanmar even further. 

“On September 20, the government declared journalism a nonessential business, leaving many journalists subject to stay-at-home orders and creating significant barriers for their travel to election-related events and for publications to produce physical copies of newspapers and magazines,” HRW’s statement said.  

“Many well-known media outlets have stopped selling newspapers, while the two state-owned newspapers, which are supportive of the government, have been able to continue printing,” it added.  

Many of the issues that HRW highlighted on Monday were apparent ahead of the 2015 election, but international institutions were more hesitant to dismiss that poll as unfair. 

Since then, global outrage in response to the mass killing and displacement of Rohingya in 2017 has made it more difficult to argue Myanmar is making progress towards becoming a democracy.  

Last month the Burma Human Rights Network warned that Myanmar could see worsening election-related violence as polling day approaches.