Observers say the vote, accompanied by a renewed crackdown on dissent, is meant to entrench the junta's power.

The Trump administration has joined a small number of countries—including China and Russia—in backing the vote, which is being held amid a brutal civil war.

Voters went to the polls Sunday for the initial phase of Myanmar ’s first general election in five years, held under the supervision of its military government while a civil war rages throughout much of the country.

Myanmar will hold the first phase of a general election on Sunday, its first vote in five years and an exercise that critics say will neither restore the country's fragile democracy undone by a 2021 army takeover,