Myanmar to Hold By-Elections in April 2027 — Even in Conflict Zones — as Military-Backed Party Keeps Its Grip

Myanmar will hold by-elections on 4 April 2027 to fill 55 vacant seats in its national and regional parliaments, the country’s military-appointed election commission has announced — including in areas caught up in the civil war that has torn the country apart since the 2021 military takeover.

The announcement, reported by Reuters and the Associated Press on Friday 6 November 2026, is Myanmar’s first vote since the general election held in December 2025 and January 2026, a vote critics said was designed to strengthen military rule. That election handed a sweeping victory to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), and its leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, went on to become president in April 2026.

The by-elections will not change who runs Myanmar. The USDP and the military already control the overwhelming majority of seats in parliament. But the vote will be watched closely — at home and abroad — as a test of how far the military government can extend its authority into areas it does not fully control, and as a measure of how much public support the parties taking part can still draw.

At a glance

• What: By-elections for 55 vacant parliamentary seats
• When: Sunday 4 April 2027
• Where: 34 seats in the lower house (Pyithu Hluttaw), 5 in the upper house (Amyotha Hluttaw), and 16 in region and state legislatures
• Who runs it: The military-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC)
• What is different: Voting will include areas affected by the civil war — but not Rakhine state, where the military is fighting the Arakan Army
• What it will not do: Change the balance of power in parliament, which the military-backed USDP already dominates

What the election commission announced

The Union Election Commission said the by-elections will be held on 4 April 2027, according to state media reports cited by Reuters. The announcement — numbered 68/2026, dated 5 November and signed by UEC chairman U Than Soe — was published in the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper on Friday, the Associated Press reported.

The vote covers 55 constituencies: 34 seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw, the lower house of parliament; five seats in the Amyotha Hluttaw, the upper house; and 16 seats in region and state legislatures.

The seats are vacant for two reasons. Some were left empty when elected representatives took up ministerial or government posts after the general election. Others are in areas that could not vote at all during the general election because of fighting — and will now get their chance to vote, according to the AP.

The commission has not yet published a full campaign calendar. Beyond the polling date and the list of constituencies, the details of how the campaign will run — and which parties will be allowed to stand — have not been announced.

Why these by-elections matter — and why they probably will not change much

On paper, 55 seats is a small number. Myanmar’s parliament has 440 seats in the lower house and 224 in the upper house, and a quarter of the seats in each chamber are reserved for serving military officers appointed by the commander-in-chief under the country’s 2008 constitution.

The USDP won 339 seats in the general election — 231 in the lower house and 108 in the upper house, according to final figures from the election commission. Add the 166 seats the constitution reserves for serving military officers, and the military and its allies dominate the 664-seat parliament. The Associated Press reported that the party and its allies secured nearly 90 percent of the seats.

With a majority that large, the outcome of 55 by-election seats cannot shift the balance of power. But elections in Myanmar are about more than arithmetic. As both Reuters and the AP noted, the vote could offer an indication of public support for the parties that take part — and, just as importantly, a signal of how much of the country the military government can actually reach.

That is why the decision to hold voting in conflict-affected areas matters. In the general election, voting took place in only 263 of the country’s 330 townships, leaving about one-fifth of the country without a vote because of fighting. In total, voting was held in 692 constituencies, with 121 excluded because they were outside the military’s control.

This time, the commission says voting will go ahead in areas hit by the civil war. The one major exception is Rakhine state, on the border with Bangladesh, which is not included. The military is locked in fierce fighting there with the rebel Arakan Army, one of the most powerful armed groups opposing it.

How Myanmar got here: the 2021 takeover and the disputed election

To understand the by-elections, it helps to go back to February 2021, when the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who had led Myanmar’s government since 2015. The takeover triggered widespread protests, a brutal crackdown, and a civil war that continues today, with armed resistance groups fighting the military across much of the country.

For almost five years, the military ruled without an election. Then, between December 2025 and January 2026, it held a general election in three phases — on 28 December, 11 January and 25 January — the country’s first vote since the takeover.

The result was widely expected. The popular National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, was dissolved and banned from taking part, and Aung San Suu Kyi herself remains in detention. Dissent was tightly restricted, and major opposition parties were excluded from the ballot.

The USDP, led by former generals, won a landslide. Official figures showed the party took more than 44 percent of the nationwide vote, according to the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper. Turnout was reported at 52 percent in the first phase, 55 percent in the second and 56 percent in the third.

The United Nations and many Western countries criticised the election as a sham — a vote designed to give military rule a civilian face rather than a genuine choice for voters.

From general to president: Min Aung Hlaing’s rise

After the election, the new parliament convened in March 2026 to choose a president. On 3 April 2026, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing — the army chief who led the 2021 takeover — was elected president, winning 429 out of 584 votes in parliament.

To take the job, he had to step down as commander-in-chief, because the constitution bars the president from holding the top military post at the same time. He handed the military command to his loyal intelligence chief, General Ye Win Oo.

The move completed a long-planned transition: from military ruler to formal head of state, elected by a parliament dominated by his own party and by unelected soldier-legislators.

Since then, Min Aung Hlaing has begun acting as a head of state on the world stage. He chose India for his first official foreign visit as president, travelling there from 30 May to 3 June 2026, and later made a state visit to Vietnam in September 2026.

The by-elections are the next step in that same process — filling the empty seats in the parliament that put him in power, and extending the reach of the institutions his government has built.

Voting in a war zone

The hardest question about the April vote is a practical one: how do you hold an election in a country at war?

Myanmar’s civil war is not a single conflict but many. Since 2021, a patchwork of armed groups — some long-established ethnic armies, others formed after the takeover — has fought the military across the country. The military has lost control of large areas, including whole townships along the borders with China, Thailand and Bangladesh.

The general election showed the limits of the military’s reach: about one-fifth of townships did not vote at all. The by-elections will test whether the government can do better — or whether the vote will again be confined to the areas it holds.

Rakhine state is the clearest example of those limits. The Arakan Army, which controls much of the state, is one of the military’s strongest opponents, and the fighting there has been among the fiercest in the war. Rakhine’s exclusion from the by-elections is a recognition, in effect, that the government cannot hold a vote there.

For voters in the areas where polling does go ahead, the experience will be very different from an election in a peaceful country. Campaigning, voter registration and polling day security all depend on conditions on the ground — and in a war zone, those conditions can change fast.

What critics say — and what the government says

Critics of the military government argue that the by-elections, like the general election before them, are not a real democratic exercise. Their case rests on three points: the main opposition party is banned, the country’s most popular civilian leader is in prison, and a quarter of parliament is reserved for the military by law — so no election can produce a government the military does not control.

The United Nations and Western governments made the same argument about the general election, calling it a sham. They have not recognised the result as a genuine democratic mandate, and Myanmar remains under heavy international sanctions. The country is also still on the Financial Action Task Force’s blacklist, after Japan’s push to lift Myanmar from the blacklist failed earlier this month.

The military government rejects that view. It presents the elections as a return to constitutional order after a period of emergency rule — a step-by-step path back to normal politics. Its supporters point to the turnout figures and the orderly handover from military government to an elected parliament and president as evidence that the process is working.

Neither side is likely to change its mind in April. What the by-elections will show, more than anything, is how much of Myanmar the government can actually govern — and how many people are willing to take part in its political system.

What happens next

The election commission has yet to publish a campaign timetable, a list of candidates or the rules for the vote. Those details will matter: which parties are allowed to stand, whether independent candidates can run, and how voting will be organised in conflict areas will all shape what the election means.

The results, when they come, will be read for two things. First, the turnout — whether people in the areas where voting is held actually turn out, and in what numbers. Second, the margins — whether the USDP wins easily, or whether other parties manage to take seats, even in a system stacked in the military’s favour.

Neither result will change who governs Myanmar. But in a country where the military has spent five years fighting to hold power, even a small vote is a signal — of control, of reach, and of how much of the country still accepts the system the generals have built.

Frequently asked questions

When are Myanmar’s by-elections?

The by-elections will be held on Sunday 4 April 2027, the Union Election Commission announced on 5 November 2026. The announcement was reported by state media and international news agencies on Friday 6 November.

How many seats are being contested?

Fifty-five seats in total: 34 in the lower house (Pyithu Hluttaw), five in the upper house (Amyotha Hluttaw), and 16 in region and state legislatures.

Why are the seats vacant?

Some seats were left empty when elected representatives took ministerial or government posts after the general election. Others are in areas that could not vote during the general election because of fighting.

Will voting take place in conflict areas?

Yes — the commission says voting will include areas affected by the civil war. The main exception is Rakhine state, where the military is fighting the Arakan Army, which is not included.

Who won Myanmar’s last general election?

The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won 339 seats in the general election held in December 2025 and January 2026 — 231 in the lower house and 108 in the upper house. Together with the 166 seats reserved for the military, the military and its allies dominate parliament. The election was criticised as a sham by the United Nations and many Western countries because the main opposition party was banned.

Who is Myanmar’s president?

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief who led the 2021 military takeover, was elected president by parliament on 3 April 2026.

Conclusion

Myanmar’s April by-elections are a small vote with a big message. Fifty-five seats will not change who runs the country — the military and its party already hold nearly nine out of ten seats in parliament. But the vote will show how far the military government’s authority reaches into a country still at war with itself, and whether people in the areas where polling goes ahead are willing to take part.

The exclusion of Rakhine state is a reminder of the limits of that authority. And the ban on the main opposition party, the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the quarter of parliament reserved for soldiers are reminders of the limits of the vote itself.

For the millions of people in Myanmar living through the civil war, the by-elections will change little in the short term. But as the first vote since the general election that put Min Aung Hlaing in the presidency, they are another step in the military’s long effort to turn power taken by force into power confirmed by ballot — and another test of whether the rest of the world will accept it.

Sources

• Reuters — “Myanmar plans April by-election, including in conflict areas” (6 November 2026): https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/international/4002480-myanmar-plans-april-by-election-including-in-conflict-areas
• Associated Press — “Myanmar to hold by-elections in April, including in areas where fighting persists” (6 November 2026): https://www.plaindealerin.com/news/wire/myanmar-to-hold-by-elections-in-april-including-in-areas-where-fighting-persists/article_5cf90db0-306f-5e58-b93b-fa4eadf80179.html
• The Daily Star / TBS News — “Myanmar to hold parliamentary by-elections in April, including conflict-hit areas” (6 November 2026): https://www.tbsnews.net/world/myanmar-hold-parliamentary-elections-april-including-conflict-hit-areas-1594611
• Associated Press (via Glance) — “Myanmar military-backed party declared election winner as army plans new body to maintain control” (January 2026): https://trends.glance.com/story/articles/news/US/en/ap-news/s-0c3e7f4e9f-4590e40d-4aab-5135-bcc9-bb026ed0872d
• Wikipedia — “2025–26 Myanmar general election”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Myanmar_general_election

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.