KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 17, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The European Union will not send 
observers to Myanmar's upcoming election, its top human rights official said 
Friday, dismissing the vote as neither free nor fair and urging Southeast 
Asian nations to push for change.

EU commissioner Kasja Ollongren also said the 27-nation bloc would not send 
observers to oversee an election planned by Myanmar's government in late 
December, because the way it is being organised indicated it is "not free and 
fair".

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has touted the December 28 elections as a 
path to reconciliation in the civil war he sparked by snatching power in a 
2021 coup.

But international monitors, including a UN expert and Amnesty International, 
have dismissed the vote as a ploy to legitimise continuing military rule.

"We're calling upon all neighbouring countries, including the ASEAN 
countries, to really firmly push for a change of course," said Ollongren.

"As long as Myanmar is unstable, as long as it's sort of a source of 
instability for the whole region, it should be the number one concern... for 
the ASEAN countries," she told AFP in an interview in the Malaysian capital.

Ollongren's call comes ahead of a major ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur next 
week, where the issue of sending election observers to represent the 10-
nation bloc is expected to be discussed.

ASEAN has been battling to implement a five-point plan, which calls, among 
other issues, for an immediate ceasefire.

Malaysia is this year's rotating chair of ASEAN -- long derided by critics as 
a toothless talking shop -- and calls at previous summits and meetings 
earlier for an end to fighting have yielded little effect.

Myanmar's vote will be blocked in huge enclaves of the country captured by an 
array of pro-democracy guerillas and long-active ethnic minority armies which 
have found common cause fighting the junta.

Naypyidaw has already conceded elections will not take place in one in seven 
national parliament constituencies, many of them active war zones, while 
martial law remains in place in one in five townships.

The planned vote was "not free and fair by the way it is being organised," 
Ollongren said.

"That means that we cannot recognise these as real elections, as fair."

"Therefore, based on these criteria, we will not send observers to something 
that we don't recognise as an election," she said.

BSS/AFP/SSS/1628 hrs