OVERSHADOWED by civil war and doubts about the credibility of the polls, voters in Myanmar were casting their ballots in a general election starting on Sunday, the first since a military coup toppled the last civilian government in 2021.

The junta that has since ruled Myanmar says the vote is a chance for a fresh start politically and economically for the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

But the election has been derided by critics — including the United Nations (UN), some Western countries and human rights groups — as an exercise that is not free, fair or credible, with anti-junta political parties not competing.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, deposed by the military months after her National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last general election by a landslide in 2020, remains in detention, and the political party she led to power has been dissolved.

PARLIAMENT WILL PICK PRESIDENT, JUNTA CHIEF SAYS
Soon after polls opened at 6 a.m. (2330 GMT), voters began trickling into some polling booths in the country’s largest cities of Yangon and Mandalay, according to a witness and local media.

Dressed in civilian clothes, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing voted in the heavily guarded capital city of Naypyitaw, then held up an ink-soaked little finger, smiling widely, photographs published by the pro-military Popular News Journal showed.

Voters must dip a finger into indelible ink after casting a ballot to ensure they don’t vote more than once.

Asked by reporters if he would like to become the country’s president, an office that analysts say he has ambitions for, the general said he wasn’t the leader of any political party.

“When the parliament convenes, there is a process for electing the president,” he said.

MILITARY-BACKED PARTY SEEN AS FRONTRUNNER
Mass protests followed the ouster of Ms. Suu Kyi’s party, only to be violently suppressed by the military. Many protesters then took up arms against the junta in what became a nationwide rebellion.

In this election, the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), led by retired generals and fielding one-fifth of all candidates against severely diminished competition, is set to return to power, said Lalita Hanwong, a lecturer and Myanmar expert at Thailand’s Kasetsart University.

“The junta’s election is designed to prolong the military’s power of slavery over people,” she said. “And USDP and other allied parties with the military will join forces to form the next government.”

Following the initial phase on Sunday, two rounds of voting will be held on Jan. 11 and Jan. 25, covering 265 of Myanmar’s 330 townships, although the junta does not have complete control of all those areas as it fights in the war that has consumed the country since the coup.

Dates for counting votes and announcing election results have not been declared.

With fighting still raging in parts of the country, the elections are being held in an environment of violence and repression, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said last week.

There has been none of the energy and excitement of previous election campaigns, residents of Myanmar’s largest cities said, although they did not report any coercion by the military administration to push people to vote.

In the lackluster canvassing, the USDP was the most visible. Founded in 2010, the year it won an election boycotted by the opposition, the party ran the country in concert with its military backers until 2015, when it was swept away by Ms. Suu Kyi’s NLD.

ELECTION WILL LEAD TO ‘BETTER FUTURE,’ JUNTA SAYS
The junta maintains that the elections provide a pathway out of the conflict, pointing to previous military-backed polls, including one in 2010 that brought in a quasi-civilian government that pushed through a series of political and economic reforms.

For the first time, polling in Myanmar is being conducted via more than 50,000 electronic voting machines that will speed up counting and eliminate the possibility of fraud, according to the junta-controlled election commission.

Election observers from Russia, China, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nicaragua and India have flown into the country ahead of the polls, state-run media reported on Sunday.

The junta’s attempt to establish a stable administration in the midst of an expansive conflict is fraught with risk, and significant international recognition is unlikely for any military-controlled government — even if it has a civilian veneer.

Zaw Min Tun, a junta spokesman, acknowledged that there would be critics among the international community that do not support the ongoing elections.

“However, from this election, there will be political stability,” he told reporters after voting in Naypyitaw. “We believe there will be a better future.” — Reuters

NEW YORK — A mix of snow and ice bore down on the US Northeast early on Saturday, disrupting post-holiday weekend airline traffic and prompting officials in New York and New Jersey to issue weather emergency declarations even as the storm ebbed by mid-morning.

People in much of the Northeast were advised to stay off the roads because of treacherous conditions, with states of emergency declared in New York and New Jersey.

“The safety of New Yorkers is my top priority, and I continue to urge extreme caution throughout the duration of this storm,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement.

By early Saturday, about six to 10 inches (15 to 25 centimeters) of snow had fallen across an area from Syracuse in central New York to Long Island in the southeast of the state, as well as Connecticut, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center near Washington, DC.

New York City received two to four inches of snow overnight, with 4.3 inches reported at Central Park, Mr. Oravec said, the most since 2022.

“The good news is that the heaviest snow is done,” he said. “Only a few flurries remain this morning and those will taper off by the afternoon.”

But the effects were felt by travelers. More than 9,000 domestic US flights on Saturday were canceled or delayed as of early evening, with many in the New York area, including at John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport, according to the tracking site FlightAware.

Representatives from American Airlines, United Airlines and JetBlue Airways told Reuters that the carriers had waived change fees normally charged to rebook for passengers whose travel plans may be affected by weather-related disruptions.

Ice storm warnings and winter weather advisories were also posted for most of Pennsylvania and much of Massachusetts.

New Jersey and Pennsylvania issued commercial vehicle restrictions for some roads, including many interstate highways.

“This storm will cause dangerous road conditions and impact holiday travel,” New Jersey’s acting governor Tahesha Way said in a statement. “We are urging travelers to avoid travel during the storm and allow crews to tend to roads.” — Reuters

PALM BEACH, Florida — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald J. Trump will meet in Florida on Sunday to hammer out a plan to end the war in Ukraine but face major differences on crucial issues and provocations from Russian air attacks.

Russia struck Kyiv and other parts of war-torn Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones on Saturday, knocking out power and heat in parts of the capital. Mr. Zelensky called it Russia’s response to the ongoing US-brokered peace efforts.

Mr. Zelensky has told journalists that he plans to discuss the fate of eastern Ukraine’s contested Donbas region during the meeting at Mr. Trump’s Florida residence, as well as the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and other topics.

Moscow has repeatedly insisted that Ukraine yield all of the Donbas, even areas still under Kyiv’s control, and Russian officials have objected to other parts of the latest proposal, sparking doubts about whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would accept whatever Sunday’s talks might produce.

The Ukrainian president told Axios on Friday he still hopes to soften a US proposal for Ukrainian forces to withdraw completely from the Donbas. Failing that, Mr. Zelensky said the entire 20-point plan, the result of weeks of negotiations, should be put to a referendum vote.

Axios said US officials viewed Mr. Zelensky’s willingness to hold a referendum as a major step forward and a sign that he was no longer ruling out territorial concessions, although he said Russia would need to agree to a 60-day ceasefire to allow Ukraine to prepare for and hold such a vote. A recent poll suggests that Ukrainian voters may also reject the plan.

Mr. Zelensky’s in-person meeting with Mr. Trump, scheduled for 1 p.m. (1800 GMT), follows weeks of diplomatic efforts. European allies, while at times cut out of the loop, have stepped up efforts to sketch out the contours of a post-war security guarantee for Kyiv that would be supported by the United States.

STICKING POINTS OVER TERRITORY
Kyiv and Washington have agreed on many issues, and Mr. Zelensky said on Friday that the 20-point plan was 90% finished. But the issue of what territory, if any, will be ceded to Russia remains unresolved.

While Moscow insists on getting all of the Donbas, Kyiv wants the map frozen at current battle lines.

The United States, seeking a compromise, has proposed a free economic zone if Ukraine leaves the area, although it remains unclear how that zone would function in practical terms.

Mr. Zelensky, whose past meetings with Mr. Trump have not always gone smoothly, worries along with his European allies that Mr. Trump could sell out Ukraine and leave European powers to foot the bill for supporting a devastated nation, after Russian forces took 12 to 17 square kilometers (4.6-6.6 square miles) of its territory per day in 2025.

Russia controls all of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and since its invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago has taken control of about 12% of its territory, including about 90% of Donbas, 75% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to Russian estimates.

Mr. Putin said on Dec. 19 that he thought a peace deal should be based on conditions he set out in 2024: Ukraine withdrawing from all of the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and Kyiv officially renouncing its aim to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Ukrainian officials and European leaders view the war as an imperial-style land grab by Moscow and have warned that if Russia gets its way with Ukraine, it will one day attack NATO members.

The 20-point plan was spun off from a Russian-led 28-point plan, which emerged from talks between US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, and which became public in November.

Subsequent talks between Ukrainian officials and US negotiators have produced the more Kyiv-friendly 20-point plan.

CANADA, EUROPEAN ALLIES RALLY BEHIND KYIV
Saturday’s air attacks show that Mr. Putin does not want peace, Mr. Zelensky said to reporters after arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

In a brief statement with Mr. Zelensky by his side, Mr. Carney said peace “requires a willing Russia.”

“The barbarism that we saw overnight — the attack on Kyiv — shows just how important it is that we stand with Ukraine in this difficult time,” Mr. Carney said, pledging C$2.5 billion (US$1.83 billion) in additional economic aid to Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke with Mr. Zelensky along with other European leaders on Saturday, said on X that their shared objective remained “a just and lasting peace” that preserved Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, while strengthening the country’s security and defense capabilities.

Mr. Zelensky said he would speak with European leaders again after his meeting with Mr. Trump. — Reuters