GLIMPSES: Prepping polling machines ahead of Myanmar's weekend election

Officials from Myanmar's Union Election Commission prepped polling stations on Saturday for the following day's election. In these images from photographer Thein Zaw at one school-turned-polling place in the capital, Yangon, workers tested voting machines and made sure everything was ready.

Myanmar will hold the first phase of the 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, nor end a devastating civil war triggered by the nation’s harsh military rule. Voting will be held in three phases, with the second on Jan. 11 and the third on Jan. 25.

The military has framed the polls as a return to multiparty democracy, likely seeking to add a facade of legitimacy to its rule, which began after the army four years ago ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The takeover triggered widespread popular opposition that has grown into a civil war. The fighting has complicated holding the polls in many contested areas.

Human rights and opposition groups say the vote will be neither free nor fair.