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Bangladesh bid farewell on Wednesday to former prime minister Khaleda Zia in a state funeral that drew vast crowds mourning a towering leader whose career defined the country’s politics for decades.Zia, the first woman to serve as prime minister in the South Asian nation of 170 million people, died on Tuesday aged 80.Flags were flown at half-mast and thousands of security officers lined roads as her body was carried through the streets of the capital Dhaka by a vehicle in the colours of the national flag.A sea of mourners gathered outside parliament and packed streets leading to it, many waving national flags as well as those of her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), before prayers were held over her coffin.Retired government official Minhaz Uddin, 70, said he had never voted for Zia, but came to honour the three-time prime minister.”I came here with my grandson, just to say goodbye to a veteran politician whose contributions will always be remembered,” he said.”Khaleda Zia has been an inspiration,” mourner Sharmina Siraj told AFP, adding that “it is difficult to imagine women in leadership positions anytime soon”.The 40-year-old mother of two said stipends introduced by Zia to support girls’ education “had a huge impact on the lives of our girls”.- ‘Legacy lives on’ -Despite years of ill health and imprisonment, Zia had vowed to campaign in elections set for February 12 — the first vote since a mass uprising toppled her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina in 2024.Zia’s BNP is widely considered a frontrunner, and her son Tarique Rahman, 60, who returned to Bangladesh last week after 17 years in exile, is seen as a potential prime minister if they win a majority.”She is no more, but her legacy lives on — and so does the BNP,” said Jenny Parvez, 37, who travelled for several hours with her family to watch the funeral cortege pass.The interim government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, declared three days of national mourning and an elaborate state funeral.Yunus said Bangladesh had “lost a great guardian”.Zia’s body was then interred alongside her late husband, Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981 during his time as president.Leaders and members of the armed forces laid wreaths, and a bugle sounded as the burial took place. – ‘Unbreakable’ -Tarique Rahman said in a statement that “the country mourns the loss of a guiding presence that shaped its democratic aspirations”.His mother, he added, “endured repeated arrests, denial of medical care, and relentless persecution”, but “her resilience… was unbreakable.”Suffering from a raft of health issues, Zia was rushed to hospital in late November, where her condition gradually deteriorated despite treatment.Nevertheless, hours before her death, party workers had on Monday submitted nomination papers on her behalf for three constituencies for next year’s polls. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he hoped Zia’s “vision and legacy will continue to guide our partnership”, a warm message despite the strained relations between New Delhi and Dhaka since Hasina’s fall.New Delhi’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is attending — the most senior visit by an Indian official since the overthrow of Hasina. He said he had met with Tarique Rahman and offered India’s “deepest condolences”.Hasina, 78, sentenced to death in absentia in November for crimes against humanity, remains in hiding in her old ally India.Zia was jailed for corruption in 2018 under Hasina’s government, which also blocked her from travelling abroad for medical treatment.Zia was released in 2024, shortly after Hasina was forced from power.”I pray for the eternal peace and forgiveness of Begum Khaleda Zia’s soul,” Hasina said, in a statement shared on social media by her now-banned Awami League party.

New Year’s Eve revellers toasted the end of 2025 on Wednesday, waving goodbye to 12 months packed with Trump tariffs, a Gaza truce and vain hopes for peace in Ukraine.It was one of the warmest years on record, the stifling heat stoking wildfires in Europe, droughts in Africa and deadly rains across Southeast Asia.There was a sombre tinge to party preparations in Australia’s harbour city Sydney, the self-proclaimed “New Year’s capital of the world”.Barely two weeks have passed since a father and son allegedly opened fire on a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting for almost 30 years.Parties will pause for a minute of silence at 11:00 pm (1200 GMT) as the famed Sydney Harbour Bridge is bathed in white light to symbolise peace.”Right now, the joy that we usually feel at the start of a new year is tempered by the sadness of the old,” Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a video message.Hundreds of thousands of spectators are expected to line Sydney’s foreshore as nine tonnes of fireworks explode on the stroke of midnight.Throughout the evening, residents and tourists began gathering by the city’s harbour and sailboats dotted the water to secure the best viewing spots near the Sydney Opera House. “The fireworks have always been on my bucket list and I’m so happy to be here,” said Susana Suisuikli, an English tourist.  Security was tighter than usual, with squads of heavily armed police patrolling the crowds.Sydney kicks off a chain of celebrations stretching from glitzy New York to the Hogmanay festival on the chilly streets of Scotland.More than two million people are expected to pack Brazil’s lively Copacabana Beach for what authorities have called the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve party.In Hong Kong, a major New Year fireworks display planned for Victoria Harbour was cancelled to pay homage to 161 people killed in a housing estate fire in November.- Truce and tariffs -Labubu dolls became a worldwide craze in 2025, thieves plundered the Louvre in a daring heist, and K-pop heartthrobs BTS made their long-awaited return.The world lost pioneering zoologist Jane Goodall, the Vatican chose a new pope, and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk laid bare America’s deep political divisions.Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, launching a tariff blitz that sent global markets into meltdown.The president used his Truth Social platform to lash out at his sliding approval ratings ahead of 2026 midterm elections.”The polls are rigged,” he wrote, without providing evidence.”Isn’t it nice to have a STRONG BORDER, No Inflation, a powerful Military, and great Economy??? Happy New Year!”But many expect tough times to continue in 2026.”The economic situation is also very dire, and I’m afraid I’ll be left without income,” said Ines Rodriguez, 50, a merchant in Mexico City.After two years of war that left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, US pressure helped land a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October.But with each side already accusing the other of flagrant violations, no one is sure how long the break in hostilities will hold.Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians.Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed more than 70,000, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, a figure the UN deems credible.World leaders including China’s Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin began exchanging New Year greetings.Xi said he was “ready to maintain close exchanges with Putin to jointly push for continuous new progress in bilateral ties”, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday.The war in Ukraine — sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 — grinds towards its four-year anniversary in February with no temporary ceasefire reached in the final days of 2025 despite a renewed burst of diplomacy.- Sports, space and AI -The coming 12 months promise to be full of sports, space and questions over artificial intelligence (AI).NASA’s Artemis II mission, backed by Elon Musk, will launch a crewed spacecraft to circle the moon during a 10-day test flight, more than 50 years since the last Apollo lunar mission.After years of unbridled enthusiasm, AI is facing scrutiny and nervous investors are questioning whether the boom might now resemble a market bubble.Athletes will gather on Italy’s famed Dolomites to hit the slopes for the Winter Olympics.And for a few weeks in June and July, nations will come together for the biggest football World Cup in history in venues across the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Myanmar’s military has said turnout in the first phase of the country’s junta-run elections exceeded 50 percent of eligible voters, a far cry from the participation rate of the last poll which was voided by a coup.The military grabbed power in a 2021 putsch that triggered civil war, and on Sunday, opened voting in a phased month-long election they pledged would return power to the people.Rights advocates and Western diplomats, however, condemned the vote, citing a crackdown on dissent and a candidate list stacked with military allies likely to prolong the armed forces’ rule.Myanmar’s dominant pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party claimed an overwhelming victory in the first phase this week, while the junta accused rebels of launching attacks on poll sites and government buildings over the weekend.Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said in a recorded message that 52 percent of the more than 11.6 million people eligible to vote in phase one had cast their ballots, or over six million voters.”Even in democratic countries, they do not have more than 50 percent voter turnout,” Zaw Min Tun said in the video shared with journalists late Tuesday.”This successful election is not the victory of our government. It’s the victory of our country and people.”The military ruled Myanmar for most of its post-independence history, before a 10-year interlude saw a civilian government take the reins.However, after Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party trounced pro-military opponents in the last elections in 2020, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing snatched power in a coup, alleging widespread voter fraud.The turnout rate in the 2020 vote was around 70 percent.But the droves of young people who queued to cast ballots in past elections were conspicuous by their absence from Sunday’s poll.Legions have left the war-ravaged country since the military seized power, including many men of conscription age — up to 35 — or youngsters seeking better livelihoods abroad.And some of those still in the country were not particularly eager to take part in the vote, which international rights campaigners have dismissed as a sham intended to rebrand military rule.

An emerging political bloc in Nepal has gained another heavyweight, with a third key figure joining the new alliance ahead of next year’s election, a party member said on Tuesday.Two of Nepal’s most popular political leaders, television host Rabi Lamichhane of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah, agreed on Sunday to unite their parties for the March 5, 2026, polls.They pledged to address the demands of younger “Gen Z” protesters following deadly anti-corruption demonstrations in September that ousted the government.Kulman Ghising of the Ujyalo Nepal Party, who is the energy minister in the interim government, also agreed to join the new alliance late on Monday.”This agreement… has brought an alternative force into the political mainstream,” said Sanjiv Ballav Bhattarai, a former Ujyalo Nepal committee member, who has now joined Lamichhane’s RSP. Ghising, 55, won significant public support when he led the Nepal Electricity Authority in tackling the Himalayan country’s load-shedding crisis.At least 77 people were killed during the youth-led September 8-9 uprising.Protests began under the loose umbrella title of Gen Z, triggered by a brief government ban on social media.The demonstrations tapped into wider public anger at economic stagnation and political corruption in the country of 30 million people.The agreement said the new alliance embraces “the spirit of the Gen Z movement against corruption and bad governance”.Prominent Gen Z protest figures, including Sudan Gurung, played a role in bringing the leaders together for talks.Nepal became a federal republic in 2008 after a decade-long civil war and a peace deal that saw former Maoist insurgents brought into government and the abolishment of the monarchy.A revolving door of ageing prime ministers and a culture of horse-trading between three dominant parties fuelled public perceptions that the government was out of touch.Lamichhane’s RSP emerged as a political surprise in the 2022 general election, when it became the fourth-largest party in parliament.However, Lamichhane has since been embroiled in cases of cooperative fraud and organised crime and was recently released on bail.

Bangladesh’s former prime minister Khaleda Zia, who many believed would sweep elections next year to lead her country once again, died on Tuesday aged 80.The government declared three days of state mourning for the country’s first woman prime minister, with vast crowds expected to attend her funeral on Wednesday.Despite years of ill health and imprisonment, Zia vowed in November to campaign in elections set for February — the first vote since a mass uprising toppled her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina last year.Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is widely seen as a frontrunner, and her son Tarique Rahman, who returned only on Thursday after 17 years in exile, is seen a potential prime minister if they win a majority.”The country mourns the loss of a guiding presence that shaped its democratic aspirations,” Rahman said in a statement.He said he was also mourning the loss of the “infinite love” of his mother, who “endured repeated arrests, denial of medical care, and relentless persecution”.”Yet even in pain, confinement, and uncertainty, she never stopped sheltering her family with courage and compassion. Her resilience… was unbreakable.”In late November Zia was rushed to hospital, where, despite the best efforts of medics, her condition deteriorated from a raft of health issues.Nevertheless, hours before her death, party workers had on Monday submitted nomination papers on her behalf for three constituencies for the polls. The BNP said Zia died shortly after dawn on Tuesday.Interim leader Muhammad Yunus said Bangladesh “has lost a great guardian”.”Through her uncompromising leadership, the nation was repeatedly freed from undemocratic conditions and inspired to regain liberty,” Nobel Peace Prize winner Yunus said in a statement.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he hoped Zia’s “vision and legacy will continue to guide our partnership”, a warm message despite the strained relations between New Delhi and Dhaka since Hasina’s fall.Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Zia had been a “committed friend” to Islamabad, while China’s ambassador in Dhaka Yao Wen offered his condolences.”China will continue to maintain its longstanding and friendly ties with the BNP,” he said.- ‘Prison over luxury’ -Braving cold rain, mourners gathered on Tuesday outside the hospital in Dhaka where Zia’s body rests.”This is an irreparable loss for the nation,” senior BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told reporters, his voice choking with emotion.”She chose prison over luxury and spent years behind bars,” said Golam Kibria, 29, a BNP loyalist who said he was tortured under Hasina’s government, calling Zia an “unmatched leader who can never be replaced”.Three-time prime minister Zia was jailed for corruption in 2018 under Hasina’s government, which also blocked her from travelling abroad for medical treatment.Zia was released last year, shortly after Hasina was forced from power.Hasina, 78, sentenced to death in absentia in November for crimes against humanity, remains in hiding in her old ally India.”I pray for the eternal peace and forgiveness of Begum Khaleda Zia’s soul,” Hasina said, in a statement on social media by her now banned Awami League party.Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo newspaper, which said Zia had “earned the epithet of the ‘uncompromising leader'”, reported that Rahman and other family members were by her side at the time of her death.”The lives of politicians are marked by rises and falls,” the newspaper wrote on Tuesday.”Lawsuits, arrests, imprisonment, persecution, and attacks by adversaries are far from uncommon. Khaleda Zia endured such ordeals at their most extreme.”

Bangladesh’s former prime minister Khaleda Zia, who many believed would sweep elections next year to lead her country once again, died on Tuesday aged 80, her Bangladesh Nationalist Party said.”The BNP Chairperson and former prime minister, the national leader Begum Khaleda Zia, passed away today at 6:00 am (0000 GMT), just after the Fajr (dawn) prayer,” the party said in a statement.”We pray for the forgiveness of her soul and request everyone to offer prayers for her departed soul,” it added.Despite years of ill health and imprisonment, Zia vowed in November to campaign in elections set for February 2026 — the first vote since a mass uprising toppled her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina last year.The BNP is widely seen as a frontrunner.But in late November she was rushed to hospital, where, despite the best efforts of medics, her condition declined from a raft of health issues.Nevertheless, hours before her death, party workers had on Monday submitted nomination papers on her behalf for three constituencies for the polls.During her final days, interim leader Muhammad Yunus called for the nation to pray for Zia, calling her a “source of utmost inspiration for the nation”.BNP’s media chief Moudud Alamgir Pavel also confirmed Zia’s death to AFP.Zia was jailed for corruption in 2018 under Hasina’s government, which also blocked her from travelling abroad for medical treatment.She was released last year, shortly after Hasina was forced from power.There had been plans earlier this month to fly her on a special air ambulance to London, but her condition was not stable enough.Her son, political heavyweight Tarique Rahman, only returned to Bangladesh after 17 years in self-imposed exile on Thursday, where he was welcomed back by huge crowds of joyous supporters.Rahman will lead the party through the February 12 general election, and is expected to be put forward as prime minister if his party wins a majority.Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo newspaper, who said that Zia had “earned the epithet of the ‘uncompromising leader'”, reported that Rahman and other family members were by her side at the time of her death.”The lives of politicians are marked by rises and falls,” the newspaper wrote on Tuesday.”Lawsuits, arrests, imprisonment, persecution, and attacks by adversaries are far from uncommon. Khaleda Zia endured such ordeals at their most extreme.”

Bangladesh’s three-time prime minister Khaleda Zia, who hoped to lead her nation one last time after elections next year, died on Tuesday aged 80.Zia, a dominant figure for decades in the South Asian country’s turbulent power struggles, had vowed to run in elections next year, the first since a mass uprising toppled her arch-rival.Despite years of ill health and imprisonment, just last month Zia had promised to campaign in elections expected in February 2026, in which her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is widely seen as a frontrunner.”Unite the party and prepare to lead,” Zia had urged BNP members earlier this year.But in late November she was rushed to hospital, where despite the best efforts of medics, her condition declined from a raft of health issues. Zia was jailed for corruption in 2018 under the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina, which also barred her from travelling abroad for medical treatment.She was released shortly after Hasina’s ouster in August 2024.- ‘Battle of the Begums’ -For decades, Bangladesh’s politics was defined by the bitter rivalry between Zia and Hasina — a feud dubbed the “Battle of the Begums”, an honorific title in South Asia for a powerful woman.The hatred traces back to the 1975 assassination of Hasina’s father, independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, along with most of her family, in a coup.Three months later, Zia’s husband, Ziaur Rahman, then deputy army chief, effectively took control. He became president in 1977. He was himself assassinated in 1981.Zia, then a 35-year-old mother of two, inherited the BNP leadership.Initially dismissed as a political novice, Zia proved a formidable opponent, rallying against military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad, and later joining forces with Hasina to oust him in 1990.The two women alternated in power for the next decade and a half.Their intractable rivalry fuelled crises, including the January 2007 standoff that brought military-backed emergency rule. Both women were detained for more than a year.Hasina later dominated, ruling from 2008 until her violent downfall in 2024.Zia’s own tenure left a mixed legacy: she was admired for her resolve but criticised for her refusal to compromise, which often left her isolated, domestically and internationally.But Zia’s political legacy may yet continue.Her son, Tarique Rahman, 60, long seen as her political heir, has also said he will run in the polls.Rahman, known in Bangladesh as Tarique Zia, returned from exile in London on December 25, after fleeing what he called politically motivated persecution in 2008.Following Hasina’s fall, he was acquitted of the most serious charge against him: a life sentence handed down in absentia for a 2004 grenade attack on a Hasina rally, which he has always denied.His image is displayed alongside his mother’s on party banners, offering a potential new chapter in Bangladesh’s enduring political saga.

India’s navy boasts aircraft carriers, submarines, warships and frontline vessels of steel as it spreads its maritime power worldwide.But none of its vessels is as unusual as its newest addition that sets sail on its maiden Indian Ocean crossing on Monday — a wooden stitched ship inspired by a fifth-century design, built not to dominate the seas but to remember how India once traversed them.Steered by giant oars rather than a rudder, with two fixed square sails to catch seasonal monsoon winds, it heads westward on its first voyage across the seas, a 1,400-kilometre (870-mile) voyage to Oman’s capital Muscat.Named Kaundinya, after a legendary Indian mariner, its 20-metre (65-foot) long hull is sewn together with coconut coir rope rather than nailed.”This voyage reconnects the past with the present,” Vice Admiral Krishna Swaminathan said, sending the ship off from Porbandar, in India’s western state of Gujarat, on an estimated two-week crossing.”We are not only retracing ancient pathways of trade, navigation, and cultural exchange, but also reaffirming India’s position as a natural maritime bridge across the Indian Ocean.”The journey evokes a time when Indian sailors were regular traders with the Roman Empire, the Middle East, Africa, and lands to the east — today’s Thailand, Indonesia, China and as far as Japan.”This voyage is not just symbolic,” Swaminathan said. “It is of deep strategic and cultural significance to our nation, as we aim to resurrect and revive ancient Indian maritime concepts and capabilities in all their forms.”- ‘A bridge’ -The ship’s 18-strong crew has already sailed north along India’s palm-fringed coast, from Karnataka to Gujarat.”Our peoples have long looked to the Indian Ocean not as a boundary, but as a bridge carrying commerce and ideas, culture and friendship, across its waters,” said Oman’s ambassador to India, Issa Saleh Alshibani.”The monsoon winds that once guided traditional ships between our ports also carried a shared understanding that prosperity grows when we remain connected, open and cooperative.”The journey is daunting. The ship’s builders have refused modern shortcuts, instead relying on traditional shipbuilding methods.”Life on board is basic — no cabins, just the deck,” said crew member Sanjeev Sanyal, the 55-year-old historian who conceived the project, who is also Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic adviser.”We sleep on hammocks hanging from the mast,” he told AFP before the voyage.Sanyal, an Oxford-educated scholar and former international banker, drew up the blueprints with traditional shipwrights, basing designs on descriptions from ancient texts, paintings and coins.”Vasco da Gama is 500 years back,” he said, referring to the Portuguese sailor who reached India in 1498. “This is 6,000-, 7,000-year-old history.”- ‘So much gold’ -India is part of the Quad security alliance with the United States, Australia and Japan, seen as a counterweight to Beijing’s presence in the Indian Ocean.For India, the voyage is also a soft-power showcase to challenge perceptions that it was China’s “Silk Road” caravans that dominated ancient East-West trade.That land trade, as described by 13th-century Venetian merchant Marco Polo, peaked centuries after India’s sea route.”India was running such large surpluses with the Romans that you have Pliny the Elder… complaining that they were losing so much gold to India,” Sanyal said.The ship’s only modern power source is a small battery for a radio transponder and navigation lights, because wooden vessels do not show up well on radar.”When you hit a big wave, you can see the hull cave in a little bit”, he said, explaining that the stitched design allowed it to flex.”But it is one thing to know this in theory,” he said. “It is quite another thing to build one of these and have skin in the game by sailing it oneself.”

Myanmar’s dominant pro-military party claimed an overwhelming victory in the first phase of the elections, a senior party official told AFP, after democracy watchdogs warned the junta-run poll would entrench military rule.The armed forces snatched power in a 2021 coup, but on Sunday opened voting in a phased month-long election they pledge will return power to the people.”We won 82 lower house seats in townships which have finished counting, out of the total of 102,” a senior member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) told AFP.The figure implies that the party — which many analysts describe as a civilian proxy of the military — took more than 80 percent of the lower house seats that were put to the vote on Sunday.It won all eight townships in the capital Naypyidaw, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to disclose the results.At the last poll in 2020, the USDP was trounced by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which was dissolved after the coup and did not appear on Sunday’s ballots.The Nobel laureate has been in detention since the putsch, which triggered a civil war.Campaigners, Western diplomats and the United Nations’ rights chief have condemned the vote — citing a stark crackdown on dissent and a candidate list stacked with military allies.”It makes sense that the USDP would dominate,” said Morgan Michaels, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.”The election is not credible,” he told AFP. “They rig it ahead of time by banning different parties, making sure that certain people don’t turn up to vote, or they do turn up to vote under threat of coercion to vote a certain way.”Official results have yet to be posted by Myanmar’s Union Election Commission and two more phases are scheduled for January 11 and 25.”My view on the election is clear: I don’t trust it at all,” Yangon resident Min Khant said Monday.”We have been living under a dictatorship,” said the 28-year-old. “Even if they do hold elections, I don’t think anything good will come of them because they always lie.”After voting on Sunday, military chief Min Aung Hlaing — who has ruled by diktat for the past five years — said the armed forces could be trusted to hand back power to a civilian-led government.”We guarantee it to be a free and fair election,” he told reporters in Naypyidaw. “It’s organised by the military, we can’t let our name be tarnished.”The coup triggered a civil war as pro-democracy activists formed guerrilla units, fighting alongside ethnic minority armies which have long resisted central rule.Sunday’s election was scheduled to take place in 102 of the country’s 330 townships — the most of the three phases of voting.But amid the war, the military has acknowledged that elections cannot happen in almost one in five lower house constituencies.

Myanmar’s dominant pro-military party claimed an overwhelming victory in the first phase of the country’s junta-run elections, a senior party official told AFP, after democracy watchdogs warned the poll would entrench military rule.The armed forces snatched power in a 2021 coup, but on Sunday opened voting in a phased month-long election they pledge will return power to the people.”We won 82 lower house seats in townships which have finished counting, out of the total of 102,” a senior official of the Union Solidarity and Development Party told AFP.The party won all eight townships in the capital Naypyidaw, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to officially disclose the results.At the last poll in 2020 the USDP was trounced by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which was dissolved after the coup and did not appear on Sunday’s ballots.The Nobel laureate has been in detention since the putsch, which triggered a civil war.Campaigners, Western diplomats and the United Nations’ rights chief have condemned the vote — citing a stark crackdown on dissent and a candidate list stacked with military allies.Official results have yet to be posted by Myanmar’s Union Election Commission and two more phases are scheduled for January 11 and 25.”My view on the election is clear: I don’t trust it at all,” Yangon resident Min Khant said on Monday.”We have been living under a dictatorship,” said the 28-year-old. “Even if they do hold elections, I don’t think anything good will come of them because they always lie.”Many analysts describe the USDP as a civilian proxy of the military, saying former officers serve in senior leadership roles.After voting on Sunday military chief Min Aung Hlaing — who has ruled by diktat for the past five years — said the armed forces could be trusted to hand back power to a civilian-led government.”We guarantee it to be a free and fair election,” he told reporters in Naypyidaw. “It’s organised by the military, we can’t let our name be tarnished.”The military’s coup triggered a civil war as pro-democracy activists formed guerrilla units, fighting alongside ethnic minority armies which have long resisted central rule.Sunday’s election was scheduled to take place in 102 of the country’s 330 townships — the most of the three phases of voting.But amid the war, the military has acknowledged that elections cannot happen in almost one in five lower house constituencies.