Shielded from the eyes of the outside world, Myanmar holds its first election in 20 years on Sunday with the opposition in disarray and the odds stacked heavily in the favour of pro-junta parties. Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will spend election day locked up and her National League for Democracy (NLD) is boycotting the poll, leaving other opposition parties with little prospect of victory. The Nobel Peace Prize winner -- whose current term of house arrest is due to expire just days after the vote -- swept her party to power in 1990 but the results were never recognised by the ruling generals. This time, one quarter of the seats in parliament are reserved for military appointees, whatever the outcome. In many areas, it is a two-horse race between parties closely aligned with the military establishment. The main democracy parties still in the running, the National Democratic Force (NDF) and the Democratic Party (Myanmar), have managed to field candidates for just a fraction of the constituencies. They have faced serious hurdles including financial and campaigning constraints. 'There is no possibility of a 1990s-style surprise vote and an opposition party winning the election. It cannot happen,' the British ambassador to Myanmar, Andrew Heyn, told reporters in Bangkok. Deepening concerns about the legitimacy of the polls, foreign election observers and international media have been barred from coming into the country for the election. The authorities have invited local journalists and diplomats on an organised visit to pre-selected polling stations, but Heyn dismissed it as 'choreographed tour'. Internet users in the military-ruled country have reported slow connections and sporadic outages for more than a week, and some suspect the junta may be intentionally disrupting services to block news on the vote flowing out. Yet while the election has been widely criticised by activists and Western nations as a sham aimed at putting a veneer of legitimacy over military rule, some see it as a small step towards democracy after five decades of autocracy. 'The opposition cannot win a victory. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the elections as a whole are inconsequential,' said Professor David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert at Georgetown University in the United States. 'This is the first election in 50 years when you're likely to have opposition voices in parliament. That is significant,' he said. The military has ruled Myanmar with an iron fist since 1962 and few expect it to relinquish the real power any time soon. Junta chief Than Shwe is not running as a candidate in the election, but could still become president. The Union Solidarity and Development Party, a political and financial juggernaut that is seen as a proxy of the military regime, is widely expected to come out on top, despite the junta's unpopularity. 'We have only two parties -- the USDP and the NUP -- we have no choice,' said a 33-year-old hotel receptionist in the capital Naypyidaw who did not wanted to be named. 'I don't like either but if I have to choose from the two, I will choose the USDP,' she said. Yet where they are in the running, opposition parties say they are confident of victory. 'The USDP cannot win in our constituencies. People are now politically aware,' said Khin Maung Swe, a leader of the NDF, which was created by former members of the NLD who disagreed with Suu Kyi's boycott decision. The wild card is the National Unity Party (NUP) -- the successor to late dictator Ne Win's Burma Socialist Program Party -- which is also contesting most of the seats, despite a 500-dollar registration fee for each candidate. It could hold the balance of power in parliament, particularly if it benefits from a protest vote against the USDP. More than 29 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots but a lack of information -- and meaningful choice -- has left many disillusioned and apathetic in a country where almost one-third of the population lives below the poverty line. 'We don't know much about the election. I don't know whom I would like to vote for on the day,' said Daw Kyi, a 67-year-old farmer living in a village near the capital. 'As we are ordinary people, we just want peace.' 