Participation can take two forms :

• a party fields candidates
• people vote

People can be forced to vote.
They can be dragooned. (an appropriate word for military coercion)
Or they can be intimidated by threat of job loss.
Starvation is a powerful weapon in the regime’s armoury.

If people can, nonetheless, show they voted against their will, this will say something about the elections, something the regime would prefer remains unsaid.

A party that fields candidates is, by doing so, commenting on the elections.
It is saying :

• “We believe in the fairness of these elections.”
• “We believe in the purpose of these elections.”

Will the voting be fair?

The voting will be as fair as in ‘the referendum’.
The so-called referendum—the pseudo-referendum—was so blatantly rigged that everyone saw it.
With greater cunning, the regime can do better. They can make it more difficult to show the elections are rigged.
But rigged they will be.
These will be pseudo-elections.

The purpose of the elections?

The declared purpose is to elect a parliament where one quarter of the members will be military appointees and where the regime retains overall control.
On the surface, it looks something like Burma’s 1935 colonial constitution, which allowed a limited measure of elected rule.*

But the reality, as we shall see, will be very different.

The real undeclared purpose of the elections is to legitimize the existing regime by hiding it behind a false façade of  “democratically-elected civilian rule”, without devolution of any powers.

How will the regime achieve this deception if only 25% of the parliamentarians are military appointees?

1. No matter that independent-minded parties — pro-democracy parties— present candidates, no matter how the electors vote, the regime will control a majority of seats in parliament:
thanks to its puppet-parties, ‘elected’ in rigged elections.

2. The regime-imposed Constitution is just another ‘Myanmarese law’  like any other.
The regime will ignore it whenever it feels like doing so.
It has even written into the Constitution its right to do this.

In the forthcoming elections, there will be two kinds of parties participating :

1. Parties controlled by the regime.
They will be either directly controlled, e.g. the USDA.
Or they will be indirectly controlled, by threatened withdrawal of privileges, and worse.

2. Parties led by imbeciles.
The correct attitude of a genuine, independent, pro-democracy party should be :

“We shall participate IF the fairness of the elections is guaranteed beyond all reasonable doubt by independent observers with unfettered access to all aspects of the polling process.”

This is a diplomatic way of saying
“No participation!”

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* Footnote:

“The Government of Burma Act 1935 implemented the recommendations of the Simon Report and in 1937 Burma was separated from India. Now there was a bi-cameral legislature, and all 132 members of its lower house were elected, 92 in general constituencies, 12 by Karens, 11 by commercial groups, eight by Indians, three by Europeans, two by Anglo-Burmans, two by Indian trade unions and one each by Burman labour and Rangoon University. The governor initiated money bills but, in practice, assented to all bills passed by the legislature. He was assisted by a council of ministers collectively responsible to the legislature and comprising the chief minister appointed by him, three ministers appointed by the chief minister, and 10 ministers chosen by the legislature. Technically, they held office during the governor’s pleasure, but they resembled the cabinet of a self-governing dominion with plenary powers save over defence, foreign affairs and the exchequer.” — Shelby Tucker in Burma: The Curse of Independence, Penguin Books, India, 2002