India backs Myanmar military's election plan

India will send teams to monitor a general election in war-torn Myanmar that is scheduled to start in December, Myanmar state media said on Monday, as New Delhi signals support for a vote that has already been derided by critics as a sham.

Myanmar's military chief Min Aung Hlaing met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China, a rare international engagement for the general who had largely been shunned by foreign leaders since leading a coup in 2021.

"At the meeting, they exchanged views on measures to ensure peace and stability in the border regions of both countries, trade promotion, enhancement of friendship and cooperation," the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

The military's ouster of an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi 4-1/2-years ago, on a pretext of election fraud, triggered a devastating civil war that has engulfed large parts of the impoverished Southeast Asia nation.

Myanmar plans to hold the initial phase of the first general election since the coup on December 28, as part of voting that a military-backed interim administration is seeking to conduct in more than 300 constituencies nationwide, including areas currently held by opposition armed groups.

In a statement on Sunday, India's foreign ministry said that Modi hoped the upcoming elections in Myanmar would be "held in a fair and inclusive manner involving all stakeholders".

A day earlier, Min Aung Hlaing also met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the two leaders discussed Beijing's support for the preparations for the polls, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar.

The planned election would occur amid a raging conflict that may make it difficult to conduct. During a nationwide census last year to create voter rolls, Myanmar's military-backed authorities managed to survey only 145 of the country's 330 townships.

So far, nine parties have registered to contest elections nationwide and 55 parties have signed up at the provincial level, having secured approvals from military-backed election authorities, according to state media.

But with parties opposed to the military either excluded or boycotting the polls, western governments and human rights groups see the election as an attempt by the generals to tighten their grip on power by paving the way for proxies to rule.