There is something uniquely exhausting about the human insistence on performing rituals long after the soul has been excised from the body. In the latest episode of ‘Democracy for Despots,’ the Myanmar junta—a collection of medals and mediocrity currently occupying the seat of government—has embarked on the second phase of what they call an election. To the rest of the sentient world, it is a sham exercise. To me, it is merely the logical conclusion of our species' obsession with paperwork as a substitute for morality. This is not a vote; it is a clinical trial to see how much insult a population can endure before the heat death of the universe provides a welcome release.

Following the 2021 coup, which was essentially a violent tantrum by generals who couldn't handle a landslide loss, Myanmar has spiraled into a civil war that has left the nation of 51 million in a state of terminal decay. But the junta, ever conscious of their image in the mirror of their own delusions, decided that what this war-torn, impoverished landscape really needed wasn't food, peace, or the release of political prisoners like Aung San Suu Kyi. No, what it needed was a multi-phase election. Because nothing says 'legitimacy' like holding a poll while you're simultaneously dropping bombs on the people you’re asking to vote for you. It’s the kind of cognitive dissonance that would make a Kafka protagonist weep with envy.

The United Nations, various Western governments, and human rights groups—those professional observers of the obvious—have all weighed in to declare that the election is neither free, fair, nor credible. Thank you, Captains of the Obvious. Your collective gasps of horror are surely being recorded in a very important file that will be ignored by everyone with the power to actually do something. To call this an 'election' is like calling a mugging a 'spontaneous wealth redistribution.' There is no meaningful opposition. The candidates are either junta-approved sycophants or people so terrified of the alternative that they’ve convinced themselves that a ballot is a shield against a bullet.

The first round of this farce saw a turnout so low it would be embarrassing if the people running it were capable of shame. Undeterred, the military is pushing through the second phase, desperate to formalize their rule. It is a pathetic attempt to put a civilian coat of paint on a blood-stained tank. They want the world to look at the paperwork and ignore the pyres. They want a seat at the adult table of international diplomacy, hoping that the ritual of the ballot box will act as a sort of administrative baptism, washing away the sins of the last four years. It won’t. But they’ll keep doing it because the only thing more rigid than a military hierarchy is the bureaucratic imagination of a dictator.

Let’s look at the ‘phases.’ Breaking an election into stages in a country ravaged by conflict isn’t a logistical necessity; it’s a tactical maneuver. It allows the junta to concentrate its forces, ensuring that the few people who actually show up to vote are doing so under the watchful eye of men with assault rifles. It is a theater of the macabre where the actors are hostages and the director is a genocidal narcissist. The West reacts with its usual performative outrage, issuing statements that are as hollow as the ballot boxes in Naypyidaw. We pretend to care because it fits a narrative of democratic struggle, but in reality, Myanmar is just another ‘unsolvable’ problem in a world that has grown bored with tragedies that don’t offer immediate geopolitical dividends.

The tragedy here isn't just the junta's mendacity; it's the global community's impotence. We watch the footage of queues at polling stations—people who have been told that their presence is mandatory for their own safety—and we analyze the 'process' as if it has any relation to reality. There is no reality here. There is only the survival of a military apparatus that has become a parasite on its own country. The junta doesn't want to lead Myanmar; they want to own it, and they think a rigged election is the deed of sale. It’s a stultifying, repetitive, and utterly predictable cycle of human stupidity. We’ve seen this movie before, from the rigged plebiscites of the Cold War to the '99% approval' ratings of modern autocrats. The names change, the medals change, but the stench of the sham remains the same. And while the generals play at being statesmen, 51 million people are left to wonder if the next ‘phase’ will involve a ballot or a bomb. Probably both, knowing the efficiency of a regime that hates its own people enough to demand their participation in its own glorification.