MYANMAR’S FLAWED CAMPAIGN
Exclusion of Muslim candidates and voters alike just one of many factors making a mockery of pledges for a ‘free and fair’ vote.
Even Aung San Suu Kyi has been attempting to lower public expectations. In a recent post on social media, she urged a “smooth and tranquil transition”, which she said was “almost more important than a free and fair election”
Campaigning is now in full swing in Myanmar’s first general election since 1990. Union Election Commission (UEC) chief Tin Aye has promised “free and fair” elections ahead of the national polls slated for Nov 8. Yet the candidate selection process has notably been marred by what appears to be the deliberate exclusion of Muslim candidates from both major parties: Thein Sein’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).
Many of the 88 candidates rejected by the UEC are Muslim, including a current USDP member of parliament, Shwe Maung, who made the candidate selection process in the 2010 byelections but failed to qualify this time.
Citizenship criteria apparently remain the major issue for most rejected candidates.
Myanmar’s 2008 constitution, which was drawn up by the military dictatorship then in charge, requires all candidates to have been born in Myanmar, and for their parents to have held citizenship at the time.
Shwe Maung, who i dentifies as a Rohingya, cannot satisfactorily prove his parents’ citizenship at the time of his birth.
He has appealed against the decision but even if he was to qualify again, Shwe Maung would be standing in an electorate where most Rohingya Muslim voters have had their citizenship cards annulled, ostensibly with the aim to prevent them from voting.
Overall, there are 6,189 candidates registered including 323 independents but no Muslim and no Rohingya candidates.
Meanwhile, international observers are keeping a close eye on developments. The Carter Centre is urging “credible” if not “free and fair” polls come November. US President Barack Obama, as early as October 2014, urged President Thein Sein to hold “inclusive” and “credible” elections.
But scandals continue to plague members of the USDP.
In what was dubbed a “baby coup”, Thein Sein last month sacked the chairman of the party, Shwe Mann, who was also the Speaker of both upper and lower houses of parliament. Shwe Mann is now being investigated by his own party for espousing anti-military rhetoric and may be sacked from the legislature altogether.
The move is the latest in a series of skirmishes between the president and Shwe Mann, who was seen as posing the strongest competition in a leadership match against Thein Sein.
UEC chairman Tin Aye has added another twist, announcing that the commission was considering a request from an ethnic party to delay elections in a northwestern region devastated by severe flooding and landslides.
Widespread floods that hit the country in late July and August affected 1.6 million people, with at least 15,000 residents in Chin State displaced and left homeless.
It is unclear how a postponement would be arranged and whether votes from Chin state will be counted if at all.
Meanwhile, democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is also fielding growing criticism of her own campaign to gain the top post.
Citing a need to represent a “majority” electorate — that is, a majority Buddhist electorate — her party rejected all Muslim candidates who applied to represent the NLD.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has also toned down calls for a “free and fair” election. In a recent post on social media, she urged a “smooth and tranquil transition”, which she said was “almost more important than a free and fair election”.
A constitutional provision that reserves 25% of parliamentary seats for representatives of the armed forces also brings into question the legitimacy of the election to bring about real change.
The NLD is widely expected to win but there is little belief that the party can deliver much of what it is peddling.
“The NLD is no longer driven by any ideals worth mentioning other than slogans and logic,” Dr Maung Zarni, a UK-based scholar and dissident in exile, told Asia Focus.
“I have absolutely no confidence in either Aung San Suu Kyi as a political or intellectual leader, or in her party, which she runs like her own pocket organisation.”
Such strong condemnations of the democracy icon have been prompted by her determined silence on the issue of the Rohingya Muslim minority group who have been so heavily persecuted by the Myanmar government.
More recently, a blanket ban on NLD hopefuls awaiting candidacy status drew the ire of local media seeking to obtain details of the party’s economic and political policies (of which there have been few signs so far).
What is becoming increasingly evident as well is that the NLD is pandering to religious hardliners in the face of threats to use force if their demands are not met.
The Protection of Race and Religion Association, better know by the Burmese initials Ma Ba Tha, has openly sided with the USDP. It has said that if the opposition should win, it could not be trusted to stop the “threat” of the growth of Islam within the country, and this would provoke the group to protest widely.
Dr Zarni said the disenfranchisement of Muslims stems from a deeply entrenched xenophobia that has created a “psychological climate” that is “increasingly toxic, fearsoaked and openly racist against Muslims”.
“That is having a major damaging impact on the social and communal fabric of the country,” he said.
Myanmar has been rocked by deadly religious violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the past few years, leading to a widening rift between the two communities.
In Meiktila, where deadly clashes between Muslims and Buddhists in 2013 left as many as 44 dead, the tensions are still evident. Scores of workers are busy building a new pagoda that would loom over the Meiktila dam, which is also undergoing major repairs.
A new road is being laid on a stretch that separates the western wall of the dam from a large green area on low-lying ground.
In stark contrast, the new road is right next to the site where a predominantly Muslim population used to live. The riots in Meiktila killed 24 people in this area alone, mainly children and teachers who could not escape the blazing inferno that was their school.
While the grass has been left to grow on the rubble, iconic mosques in the centre of town are also closed. Just three of Meiktila’s 13 mosques are currently open for Friday prayers.
Myanmar political commentator Kenneth Wong believes the opposition party still has a prominent role to play in helping to alleviate the marked disenfranchisement of Muslim communities, which are estimated to make up between 4% and 8% of the population.
Mr Wong argues that NLD candidates such as Nay Phone Latt are known for their activities promoting interfaith campaigns. He is also a drawing card for a younger electorate who no longer identify with Aung San Suu Kyi’s geriatric inner circle.
“Nay Phone Latt is also well-known because of his social media-driven Panzagar (Flower Speech) initiative against hate speech,” Mr Wong said. “So these candidates’ domestic outreach efforts will be amplified by their overseas supporters’ social media outreach.”
But he remains critical of the wider international community, which benefits significantly from Myanmar’s supposed democratic transition in terms of increased business and economic ties.
“Personally, I don’t see the point of inviting international observers to monitor the election,” he said. “It should be abundantly clear from the election rules themselves that it won’t be a free and fair election.
“If the international community is concerned about the integrity of the upcoming elections, they should be vociferously objecting to the flawed campaign climate and the uneven playing field right now.”