Myanmar junta lifts Yangon curfew ahead of elections

Myanmar's junta said on Friday it will lift a curfew imposed in Yangon since its 2021 coup, just days before the start of elections it touts as a return to normality.

The military staged a 2021 putsch ousting Myanmar's elected government and sparking massive pro-democracy protests in cities nationwide.

As security forces battled to put down the demonstrators, the junta enforced a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the largest city of Yangon, home to around seven million people.

In the years since then, the span of the curfew has shrunk incrementally -- and the junta said the remaining 1:00 am to 3:00 am lockdown would be lifted as of Saturday.

"Regional stability in Yangon region is improving now," said a statement shared by junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun.

The statement said the decision was made "in order to improve economic, social and religious matters, for the convenience of people's transportation and to improve business development".

The military crushed the protest movement, but many activists quit the cities to fight as guerillas alongside powerful ethnic minority armies which have long held sway in the nation's fringes.

The dynamic has plunged Myanmar into a civil war killing thousands, displacing more than 3.6 million and leaving half the nation in poverty, according to the United Nations.

The military took over making allegations that the government of Aung San Suu Kyi trounced their pro-military opponents by means of massive voter fraud.

But the junta has organised new elections -- starting in phases on Sunday and due to last a month -- promising they will return democracy.

Suu Kyi remains jailed, her hugely popular party dissolved and the poll is being widely criticised by democracy watchdogs as an exercise to rebrand military rule.

While the Yangon curfew was only two hours, the city's nightlife has remained gutted since the Covid-19 pandemic and the coup which continued heavy restrictions.

Taxis are hard to hail as evenings draw on and many restaurants and bars close early, even at weekends.

As the junta battles its opponents it has also enacted a conscription order to draft young men into its ranks, making them wary of being press-ganged at night.