Lukewarm early voter turnout in Myanmar election suggests public apathy

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December 28, 2025

Tepid early turnout in Myanmar election — A woman shows her ink covered finger after casting her vote

Ink on Fingers, Silence in the Streets: Myanmar’s Election That Felt Like a Postcard From a Country at War

When the polling stations opened, the ritual was familiar: the dip of an index finger into indelible ink, the soft shuffle toward a cardboard booth, the hushed murmur of names crossing the ballot. But the scene felt hollow in places that once overflowed. In Yangon’s quieter neighborhoods, in Mandalay’s wide avenues, and in the government-built capital of Naypyitaw, people moved past polling booths as if skimming the surface of a story they no longer trusted.

For many, this was the first national vote since a military seizure of power in early 2021, and it arrived in three slow beats — a first phase followed by voting scheduled for 11 and 25 January in a process the junta framed as the return to normalcy. Yet normality is a word that sits uncomfortably beside checkpoints, regular clashes in the hills, and a dissolved opposition—not to mention a Nobel laureate who remains behind bars.

Under the Guarded Lamps: How Voting Looked on the Ground

Security was everywhere. Armored vehicles idled on side streets; platoons walked past temples where monks once canvassed in quiet. In Naypyitaw a man in plain clothes—junta chief Min Aung Hlaing—appeared on state television beaming as he showed off his inked finger, a small, defiant signal of civic participation. Reporters pressed him about presidential ambitions; he smiled and deflected, saying only that the parliament will decide the next head of state.

But across the country, voters simply stayed home. Ten residents Reuters spoke to reported turnout that was markedly lower than the 70% participation seen in both the 2015 and 2020 general elections, figures remembered almost reverentially by those who had campaigned door-to-door for years. In many townships the queues were thin. In others—particularly those affected by active resistance—the streets remained entirely empty after calls from armed groups to boycott the polls.

What the Numbers Hide

The junta has not set a legal minimum turnout for the vote, a quirk that allows it to claim legitimacy regardless of how thin crowds may be. Meanwhile, the landscape of candidates has shifted dramatically. Parties linked to the military, most prominently the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), were the loudest voices on the campaign trail—old machinery dusted off for a new march. Observers counted the USDP among the most visible, noting it had placed a significant share of candidates on ballots where opposition parties are absent or disbanded. Local analysts estimate the USDP accounted for roughly one-fifth of candidates in this cycle, though seats still extend across complex and often contested terrain.

Voices From the Lines: Citizens, Analysts and the Unheard

“I came to see what the fuss was about,” said Thiri, a tea-shop owner near Yangon’s western district, her hands wrapped around a steaming cup. “But I don’t believe this is for us. It feels like a show.” Her words echoed those of a college student in Mandalay who told me, “We have elections, yes. But does anyone outside these walls believe in them?”

Others spoke through resignation rather than outrage. “I voted because my mother asked me to,” said an elderly man in Mawlamyine, his voice small amid the muffled thud of military vehicles. “She remembers better days.” In Hakha, capital of Chin State, the story was different: residents described deserted streets after local resistance groups urged families to stay indoors, saying the choice to abstain was also a form of protest.

Experts were blunt. “This election is engineered to entrench military power under a civilian veneer,” said Lalita Hanwong, a lecturer and Myanmar specialist at Kasetsart University in Thailand. “Institutions that once allowed political competition have been hollowed out.” Tom Andrews, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, called the vote “not a pathway out of the country’s crisis” and urged the international community to reject the exercise.

The Political Terrain: A Dissolved Opposition and a House of Mirrors

Since the 2020 landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), Myanmar’s political terrain has shifted violently. The NLD was dismantled by the junta; its leader remains detained and charged with multiple offenses. In the absence of a major pro-democracy contender allowed to campaign freely, parties with military ties have reasserted themselves, drawing lines between past rule and the current architecture of power.

“They want the trappings of democracy without the messy business of dissent,” said a Yangon-based civil society activist, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. “You get ballots and booths, but not competition.” This set-up raises an uncomfortable question for any external observer: when electoral form exists without genuine choice, can we call it a democracy at all?

Local Colors and Quiet Rebellions

Myanmar’s streets tell the truth in small details. Around many polling stations, vendors still sold laphet—fermented tea leaves—wrapped in banana leaves, and schoolchildren in crisp uniforms glanced at soldiers with curiosity rather than fear. In rural markets, the familiar rhythm of bargaining persisted even as the country’s political heartbeat faltered.

But other places suggested deeper ruptures. Refugee buses lined up near border towns; families whispered about relatives who had fled. In towns where the junta never fully asserts control, networks of resistance continue to operate, offering basic services and local governance in the vacuum created by the coup.

What This Means Beyond Myanmar

Myanmar’s election is more than a national event. It is a case study in how modern authoritarians co-opt democratic forms to gain a semblance of legitimacy. It is a warning for a world where constitutional processes can be hollowed and repurposed. And it is a test of international resolve: whether foreign governments and institutions will recognize governments that emerge through constrained, coerced, or staged contests.

As you read this, consider the choices nations make in the face of repression. When the ink on a finger becomes the symbol of civic life, what does it mean when so many hands remain unstained?

Looking Ahead

The junta has promised to announce preliminary results after the first phase and to continue with subsequent rounds covering 265 of 330 townships—some of which it does not fully control. For many inside Myanmar and for observers abroad, that is not the end of a story but another chapter in a struggle that has already cost lives, livelihoods, and trust in institutions.

Will the world engage with the government that emerges? Will locals find ways to rebuild democratic life amid conflict? Those answers are not in the ink on a finger but in the choices people—inside Myanmar and outside—make in response. For now, the polling booths stand like empty sets at the end of a play, lights still on while the audience files out, uncertain if the show can or should go on.

Gazan student torn between hope and fear amid ongoing conflict

By

hanad

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December 28, 2025

'Hope feels dangerous' - mixed emotions for Gazan student — Ghada with her mother in Gaza

Last Photos, First Steps: A Student’s Escape from the Ashes of Home

The photo is simple: a young woman grinning into a phone camera, three little girls shoulder-to-shoulder, smoke-darkened stones and a cooking pot steaming behind them. It is a collage of ordinary things — a meal, a selfie, a sibling stirring a pot — and yet, for Ghada Ashour, 24, it is everything she can carry of Gaza with her to Dublin.

“Gratitude, fear and guilt,” Ghada told me, pausing as if weighing each word. “Those three sum up how I felt the day I left.” She says the words slowly, as if letting them settle on the table between us. They do not feel like abstractions; they feel like luggage worn on the shoulders.

From Tents to Trinity — Not Quite, But Close

Until August, Ghada was one of many living in a tented displacement camp in Khan Younis, studying remotely through the American University in Cairo while the war unfolded around her. She had been filming life there for RTÉ: the long walks to find a plug and an internet signal, the patchwork rhythms of study and survival.

Then a door opened. Ghada was among 52 Palestinian scholarship recipients who were evacuated from Gaza in August and began studies at Irish universities in September. For her, Dublin City University — a scholarship made possible by United Against Online Abuse and DCU’s own support — became an improbable haven.

“I’m here, I’m in Ireland, I’m safe and sound,” she smiled from her Glasnevin student room, the chill of the city pressing at the window. “None of this would have been possible without the university and our sponsors.”

The Practical Miracle and the Emotional Cost

The logistics of getting students out of Gaza were a tangle of diplomacy, paperwork and peril. Officials from universities, NGOs and private sponsors describe sleepless nights coordinating visas, flights and safe corridors while monitoring ceasefire windows. For Ghada, the practical miracle arrived on 26 August — the day she shared a last lunch with family, snapped the photos now treasured on her phone, and boarded a plane.

“We had to choose between staying with family in a town that might never be the same, or taking a chance to finish our education,” she said. “It was the toughest decision I’ve ever made.”

Rubble, Memory and a Little Girl Named Mariam

News reports said an agreed ceasefire came into effect on 10 October. For Ghada, however, the ceasefire is not a headline — it is a yardstick. “We can believe there is a real ceasefire when houses are rebuilt, when students and children go safely back to school,” she told me. Her family has been able to visit the place where their house once stood near Khan Younis. Footage sent by relatives shows a familiar plot reduced to dust and jagged concrete.

Among the faces in those videos is Mariam, a shy niece who wanders stones and remembers a home she can no longer find. “She is the daughter of my brother who was killed on 10 March 2024,” Ghada said, the date like a small, hard pebble lodged in her throat. “She wants to study. She always says, ‘I want to be strong like you, I want to resume my education.'”

It is a detail that refuses to be just poignant: a child naming education as her future even when safety, shelter and a father are gone. It cuts across assumptions about what people want when everything has been taken. It is also a reminder of the broader, quieter losses that accompany armed conflict — the loss of continuity, of classrooms, of teachers and textbooks, of the certainty that childhood will look like childhood.

Survivor Guilt, Determination and the Weight of Prayer

“Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Why me? Why not her?'” Ghada said, thinking of girls back in Gaza who are drawing water from reservoirs instead of opening books. “I have survivor guilt. I sit here and study while others run to fill water tanks.” She sifts through her memory: the smell of her mother’s cooking, the way her mother prayed over her. “I miss my mother’s prayers. I feel like I am here today because of her prayers.”

Yet survivor guilt sits alongside a sharp, pragmatic resolve. Ghada talks of high expectations for herself, of finishing a master’s degree and turning education into a tool for the future. “I feel I must work harder,” she says. “Not just for me, but for those left behind.”

Voices Around the Story

Not everyone sees evacuation as an unambiguous victory. A local teacher in Khan Younis, who asked to be named Amina, explained: “When a student leaves, the classroom loses energy. When many leave, schools may close. Education can be emptied out of a place long before buildings collapse.”

A spokesperson from DCU who coordinated student arrivals—Michael O’Connell—described the program as “a moral imperative, not a charity project,” adding, “Universities have responsibilities to global students and to the future we all share. Education is both sanctuary and instrument.” He also noted the logistical strain: “We housed dozens of students in the matter of weeks—supporting visas, courses, counseling. It changes us as institutions.”

And an aid worker who has spent years operating in Gaza, Leila Haddad, offered a sobering frame: “A ceasefire on paper does not mean reconstruction overnight. Basic services, schools, health centers—those take time, agreements, and sustained funding. Displacement is not a moment; it is a longer arc.”

What This Moment Tells Us

Ghada’s story is intimate and specific, but it reverberates with global themes. Who gets to keep learning in times of war? What does it mean when universities — traditionally anchors of stability — become, in effect, rescue ships for talent fleeing violence? And what happens to places that lose their young people, their future teachers, doctors and engineers?

Consider these questions: If education is an emergency need, why is it often the last to receive consistent humanitarian funding? How do host communities and universities balance rapid emergency support with long-term integration? And finally, how do survivors reconcile the moral complexity of safety built on someone else’s continuing peril?

Small Acts, Big Ripples

Last lunches with family become talismans, small rituals that preserve identity in transit.
Scholarship programs can pivot lives, but they do not replace collective reconstruction.
Children like Mariam embody both fragility and fierce aspiration — the kind of resilience that is often underestimated.

Leaving, Staying, and the Work Ahead

Ghada watches her old RTÉ report sometimes, she told me, “to remind myself where I began.” When she studies, she says she carries two images: a tent where she once did exams, and a small Dublin desk cluttered with notes and a kettle. “I hold both. I don’t want anyone to think we’ve only escaped. We also carry responsibility to those we left behind.”

As readers, what are we to do with a story like this? We can feel helpless, or we can notice the power of small acts — universities opening their doors, donors funding scholarships, ordinary people lighting open fires and feeding families against a season of ruin. We can ask our institutions — educational and civic — to think globally about safety, access and the future of learning.

Finally, perhaps the most human response is to keep looking. To look at photographs, to listen to voices like Ghada’s, to remember that in the rubble there are names, ambitions and prayers. “Hope feels risky,” she confessed. “But I try.” It is a modest manifesto for a world where education can still be a form of courage.

Guatemala bus crash kills 15 and injures 19 passengers

By

hanad

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December 28, 2025

15 people killed, 19 injured in Guatemala bus crash — Emergency personnel at the scene of the incident (Pic: @BVoluntariosGT)

Ravenous Fog, a Cliff Road, and a Bus That Didn’t Make It: A Night in Guatemala’s Highlands

They found the wreckage snuggled in the ribcage of a ravine, half-swallowed by mist and broken glass. A passenger bus that had been threading the Inter-American Highway — the long, vital spine of Central America — came apart at a bend in Sololá, a mountainous department where the road shoulders drop away like old promises.

By the time first responders finished counting, 15 people were dead and 19 more were being rushed to nearby hospitals with injuries ranging from minor to critical. A fire service spokesperson later specified the toll as 11 men, three women and one child. Social media from the scene showed firefighters wedged inside twisted metal and rescuers hauling survivors up a steep, muddy slope as police cordoned off the highway.

What Happened in the Fog

The exact sequence is still under investigation. Local authorities and witnesses describe the ubiquitous early-morning fog that clings to these hills, reducing visibility to little more than a car’s headlights. “This road is beautiful and treacherous,” said Maritza Chuy, who runs a small eatery in a lakeside village near Panajachel. “You can’t see the turn until you are on it.”

Drivers in Sololá speak of microclimates — pockets of cloud that appear without warning — and of a narrow, serpentine highway that was built long before modern safety engineering. “You have to be careful every time you drive here, even if you’ve done it a thousand times,” said a bus driver who asked not to be named. “A second of distraction, or one patch of fog, and it’s over.”

Rescue and the Human Cost

Images released by the fire department showed the bus crumpled against boulders at the bottom of the ravine as firefighters and volunteers worked through the night. The injured were transported to clinics and hospitals in Sololá and neighboring towns. Local health workers, many of whom were also grieving neighbors and relatives, readied operating rooms and crowded hallways.

“We did everything we could for those who came in,” said Dr. Ana López, an ER physician at a regional hospital. “Every injury is a person: a mother, a father, a child. We need more ambulances, better road signs, and a culture of prevention.”

Beyond the Crash: Patterns and Pressures

Road safety in Guatemala is not just a matter of isolated tragedies. It is the product of geography, poverty, and an aging transport network strained by increasing demand. The Inter-American Highway — part of the greater Pan-American route that connects continents — threads through highlands and valleys, carrying commuters, produce, tourists, and freight. Where engineering is thin and enforcement even thinner, accidents occur with painful regularity.

Road traffic injuries are a significant public health challenge across Latin America. In Guatemala, where rural populations rely heavily on public and informal transport, crashes are among the leading causes of emergency admissions. Every year, thousands of people lose their lives or are left with life-changing injuries on roads that a generation ago were designed for far fewer vehicles.

Voices from the Valley

At the market in Santiago Atitlán, a woman named Rosa clutched her woven shawl and spoke of fragile livelihoods. “People travel this road to sell their corn, their textiles, their crafts,” she said. “A bus is not just a bus. It is how we connect to our children’s schools, to doctors, to work.”

A volunteer rescuer, Carlos Martínez, sat down on a rock with soot on his hands. “We don’t want names in the headlines,” he said softly. “We want safer roads. We want warning lights where fog is common and guardrails where the cliff is hungry.”

What Could Make a Difference?

There is no single answer, but a combination of infrastructure investment, public education, and sensible regulation can reduce the toll. Simple interventions — reflective signage, rumble strips, guardrails, weather-activated warning systems — have saved lives elsewhere. Better driver training and limits on nighttime passenger services on risky stretches could also be meaningful.

Improve fog-warning systems and install reflective road markers in high-risk areas.
Strengthen enforcement of speed limits and vehicle maintenance checks for passenger transport.
Invest in emergency medical services and quicker response times in rural areas.
Promote community-led safety programs, especially in indigenous and rural regions.

Experts note that the cost of proactive measures is almost always smaller than the social and economic toll of frequent accidents. “Prevention is not a luxury,” said María Elena Rivas, a transport safety researcher. “It’s an investment in people’s lives and livelihoods.”

Local Color: Life on the Highlands Road

Sololá’s slopes are vivid with color — traditional woven skirts (cortes) and huipiles patterned with ancestral motifs, small altars at crossroads, and the early-morning stalls selling hot tamales and coffee. On good days, the lake below mirrors the sky and volcanoes loom like sentinels. On bad days, that beauty becomes a hazard: a sudden bank of cloud can turn the road into a silent, dangerous narrowway.

“My father used to say the road has two moods: generous and jealous,” laughed an elderly man in a market stall, though his voice softened when the subject turned to the crash. “There is joy here, and also risk. We must hold both in our hands.”

Looking Outward: Local Tragedies, Global Lessons

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December 27, 2025

Dec 27(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya, Xasan Sheekh Maxamuud, ayaa xalay khadka taleefanka kula hadlay inta badan xubnaha Madasha Samatabixinta Qaranka iyo Madaxweynihii hore Maxamed Cabdullaahi Farmaajo, isaga oo kala hadlay arrin xasaasi ah ee la xiriirta go’aanka ay Israel ku aqoonsatay Somaliland.

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