Hoax Facebook posts circulating in November 2020 claim inquiry was launched in Myanmar to investigate election fraud

The misleading post was published here on Facebook on November 10, 2020. It has been shared more than 400 times.

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A screenshot of the misleading post

Part of the post’s Burmese-language caption translates to English as: “BREAKING NEWS: An inquiry commission on election results has been formed after Myanmar police force received 3568 reports of fraud within the Union Election Commission that helped the National League for Democracy (NLD) government win the recent election. The inquiry commission includes Army intelligence, Myanmar Police Force (CID), elected candidates and journalists.”

“People should not believe the election results from any media, accounts and pages on social media. Please wait and listen for announcements from the Tatmadaw true news team.”

“Tatmadaw” is a reference to the Myanmar army.

The general election in Myanmar was held on November 8, 2020, as reported by AFP here.

The Union Election Commission (UEC) released the final results of elected representatives here on November 15, 2020.

Similar claims were also published here, here, here, here, and here.

However, the claim is false.

In an interview on November 11, U Kyi Toe, a member of the NLD party's Central Information Committee, said the posts appear to have originated from “unreliable sources”.

He told AFP: "We need to find out how reliable the source of the misinformation is. And setting up an inquiry commission is up to the president at the union level. Therefore, I would like to ask people to be wary of such unreliable sources.”

The Myanmar military released this statement on Myanmar’s peace process on November 9, 2020, in which it made positive comments about the election. It states, in part: “The 2020 general election has been successfully held and the COVID-19 disease outbreak is under control to an extent.”

Multiple keywords searches found no statements about forming an “election inquiry commission” on the army’s official information team website and other government websites including the President’s Office and State Counsellor Office pages.