Myanmar Elections Could Spur Global Business Appetites, But Will They Be Legitimate?

Myanmar’s long-delayed elections are ready to begin on Dec. 28, and neighboring countries are looking for more secure economic ties.

Myanmar’s military is promising “free, fair, and credible elections” to legitimize its rule after a 2021 military coup, claiming that there will be a restored democracy. Meanwhile, analysts and union leaders are calling it a “sham designed to maintain power with new laws favoring the military.” 

They contend that this will not end military rule, but rather consolidate it and lead to intensified conflict in the coming years. 

Before the coup, the export sector was seen as harbinger of business growth for the country, with global brands and business expanding their interests in Myanmar and the country being seen as a gateway for international business engagement and manufacturing growth.  

However, in the past four years, businesses operating in Myanmar have faced increasingly fragile supply chains, weakened externally by international condemnation and sanctions and internally by political coercion. They’ve experienced forced compliance with military authorities and pressure from democracy and labor rights groups. Companies have been forced to navigate a complex environment in which continuing operations risks legitimizing the junta, while withdrawal raises fears of mass job losses in an already devastated economy.

Despite these risks, Myanmar’s low labor costs continue to attract interest from some segments of global business. As of Oct. 1, the minimum daily wage stood at 7,800 Myanmar kyat (about $3.73), among the lowest in the region. 

While Western buyers and brands have been unsure about whether to continue sourcing from Myanmar in the past years, and many global players have pulled out, much of the business appetite has been coming from China.

This shift has not been without consequences for workers.

“What we are also seeing is a lot of hostility towards Chinese businesses because while workers need the jobs, they also see the businesses not playing neutral, not being fair to workers, but actually actively working against affected workers,” Debbie Stoddard of ALTSEAN told Sourcing Journal. “There has been a lot of outrage because there has been no way to appeal against unpaid wages, forced overtime, and other forms of extortion. In one case in a shoe factory workers were demanding to be paid their wages, and insisted on their right to strike, the management called the police, and seven people were shot dead,” she said.

There has also been a lot of fear and loss of workers in the face of the economic decline in the country, along with the armed resistance and global condemnation. 

“A lot of businesses lost their young workers because of the forced conscription, as well as because they were trying to flee the country because of this,” said Stoddard, observing that the garment exports industry, has ‘been decimated’ in the past few years.

In research released on Friday, the Business & Human Rights resource Center (BHRC) catalogued 665 allegations of garment worker abuse between March 2021 and October 2024 based on data tracked by Centre. It finds that forced and excessive overtime, gender-based violence, child labor, unsafe working conditions and retaliation against union activity have become systemic across the sector since the 2021 military coup, amid widespread repression and the collapsing of labor protections. 

Mayisha Begum a labor programmer officer, told Sourcing Journal that reduced wages, wage theft, inhumane work rates and mandatory overtime continued to be the top areas of concern, followed by unsafe working conditions, harassment, intimidation, abuse and gender-based violence. 

“We found workers were  being denied their bonuses, severance, or even the due wages. We’ve seen an increase in workers being forced to stay in a factory and work overnight or sleep overnight in the factory. There have been reported health issues such as fainting, passing out and things like that. This has been led by excessive production targets, which are much higher than they were earlier. This is a really common trend and the severity of it is growing,” she said. 

Business within the neighboring countries and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region is also at stake, with regional leaders observing that an unrepresentative election process would detract from economic confidence in Myanmar and affect cross-border commercial ties. 

ASEAN members have decided not to send bloc-wide election observers and urged the ruling junta to prioritize peace and inclusive dialogue ahead of any poll, reflecting broader concerns that ongoing conflict and a lack of credible political process are deterring investment and disrupting trade within the region. 

Some ASEAN governments and rights groups have also criticized companies in member states for maintaining commercial links with junta-controlled enterprises, saying these ties risk fueling instability and undermining efforts to resolve the crisis.

Marcus Brand, who led the Myanmar program at International IDEA from 2020 to 2024 before it was shut down due to funding cuts, said the core issue extends beyond the credibility of the vote itself. “The problem with the sham elections in Myanmar is not only whether the elections themselves might be legitimized, which is already questionable as ASEAN has also expressed doubts,” he said. “The question is whether the parliament formed on the basis of this election will be recognized internationally, or even by neighboring countries and ASEAN.”

While the elections are widely expected to lack legitimacy, the temptation to use them as a pretext for normalization remains significant. “There’s a very strong urge among neighbors to normalize relations with Myanmar; to get back to business and not have to explain so much when they are doing commercial operations and resource extraction there,” he said. 

This dynamic also shapes the debate within global business circles.

Many executives argue that continued engagement is necessary to support workers, particularly women, who make up the majority of the workforce in Myanmar’s garment sector. Brand said he has heard diplomats in Yangon defend European business presence on the grounds that withdrawal would deprive women of jobs and income.

“There has been pressure for many businesses to pull out until now, because they had to sign documents, pay taxes and customs duties, and effectively treat the junta as the government,” he said. “That was done with hesitation because of the regime’s lack of political legitimacy. With a new parliament in place, however, there is likely to be growing pragmatism and momentum to move on.”

According to Brand, this could create space for companies to frame their activities as engagement with a civilian government rather than direct dealings with the military, even if real power remains unchanged. In this context, the absence of democratic elections may not be a decisive obstacle for many businesses, as seen in countries such as Laos, Vietnam and China. “The business community may not say this openly, but there is clear interest in normalization,” he said. “Even European companies may feel awkward about it, but pragmatically, they would like to be part of whatever normalization follows.”

What normalization ultimately means remains open to interpretation and may be left to the conscience of individual firms weighing reputational risk against commercial opportunity. 

The prospect of cheap labor and favorable post-election investment terms continues to exert a powerful pull, even as unresolved questions persist over U.S. sanctions, including a 40 percent tariff imposed on Myanmar exports.

Brand suggested that a future U.S. administration could also view Myanmar through a transactional lens. “What I suspect is that a Trump administration would look at the situation and ask how it can benefit from this opening and secure a share of the pie,” he said.

For human rights advocates, the danger lies in the gradual re-emergence of “business as usual” despite escalating violence. 

James Rodehaver, chief of the Myanmar team at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Sourcing Journal that the urge to get back to this sense of business could not be discounted. “We assume that is one of the big reasons some are saying ‘let’s see what happens after the elections’ and casting a blind eye to all the violence being set off by them,” he said.

Rodehaver warned that it was important to note that rather than initiating a genuine transition, the elections are likely to intensify polarization at a time when the population is deeply exhausted.

“The people have been incredibly resilient and have given up so much,” he said. “Instead of a real transition, real humanitarian access and real relief, they are getting more violence, more cynicism and more demands that they accept the coup and the violence visited upon them.”

He cautioned that treating the process as “legitimate” risks normalizing both the coup and the bloodshed that has followed. 

“People are being asked to risk everything—their lives and their futures—to vote in an election where the outcome was known from the moment it was announced,” he said. “The ballots cast on Dec. 28 and during phases two and three will be marked with the blood of the Myanmar people.”

“And that is a sham,” he said, while adding for emphasis, “It is a real shame.”