Myanmar’s Slow and Uncertain Path to Real Democracy and Reform

Myanmar has been an unreliable paramour for those longing for genuine democracy and reform in this long-isolated Southeast Asian nation. As the country faces its next major election in November, the high hopes the West placed in erstwhile democracy icon Aung San

Suu Kyi lie in ruins.

The shifting political landscape has cast uncertainty in all directions. The time may now have come to put hope in Myanmar’s evolving civil society, writes Bertil Lintner. it is ALWAYS difficult to predict the outcome of any election, but in the run-up to Myanmar’s general election, which is scheduled to be held on nov. 8, most political observers tend to agree on three major points: the country’s main party, the national League for democracy (nld), is not quite as popular as before but will win and form the next government; the powerful military will continue to exercise control from behind the scenes; and the country’s fledgling civil society may grow to become the only force capable of challenging the status quo. that latter phenomenon is also the only aspect of the strife-ridden country’s recent developments that leaves some room for optimism.

this will be the third time that general elections have been held since the old one-party system under the now defunct Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) was abolished in the wake of a nationwide uprising for democracy in the late 1980s. the first was in May 1990 when the military junta that had assumed power after suppressing the revolt decided, to the surprise of many, to allow elections to take place. the abundance of political parties at the time had probably made the military believe that not one of them would win a single majority. that was a serious miscalculation.

Although then-nld leader Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest at the time in the old capital Yangon, the party won 392 of 492 contested seats for the Pyithu hluttaw, as the would-be legislature was called. the national Unity Party (NUP), the successor to the BSPP and the military’s favorite, scored a meager 10 seats. the rest

went to regional ethnic parties, mainly among the Shan but also the Mon, Rakhine, Chin and others. the military’s mistake was that it had not realized that, in the minds of the electorate, it was a not an ordinary election but a referendum in which the NUP stood for the old order and the nld symbolized change. All other parties, except ethnic parties, which in alliance with the nld wanted to safeguard their specific rights, became irrelevant.

the election results prompted the junta to move the goalposts. that next July, it was announced that a constitution would have to be drafted before any new government could be formed. no one disputed the need to write a new constitution, but it should have been the duty of the elected legislature — which, as it happened, never convened. instead, three years later, the junta formed a constitution-drafting assembly consisting of only around a hundred elected MPS and another 600 or so delegates who were appointed by the military. the composition of that assembly in no way reflected the outcome of the 1990 election.

After years of meetings but no real discussions, that assembly presented a new constitution that was approved by a supposed 93.82 per cent of the electorate in a referendum held in May 2008. that result was no doubt rigged and the new constitution gave the military virtual veto power over attempts to introduce a more democratic order. A quarter of all members of parliament, in the upper as well as the lower house, would be appointed by the military and no changes to important clauses in the charter would be possible unless more than three quarters of the lawmakers voted in favor of such amendments. the military would remain autonomous and take orders only from the commander-in-chief, not the government or any elected representatives. Moreover, the commander-in-chief would appoint the three most important ministers: defense; home affairs, which includes the internal security apparatus; and, border affairs, or issues related to the many ethnic wars that are being fought in the country’s frontier areas.

With those safeguards in place, an election was held in november 2010. the nld decided on a boycott, the NUP had slipped into oblivion, and the military had formed a new organization, the Union Solidarity and development Party (USDP), which amid accusations of voter fraud won nearly 80 percent of seats contested in both houses of parliament. But then, and again to the surprise of many, the new government, headed by thein Sein, a former army general and erstwhile junta member, introduced a number of reforms aimed at breaking the country’s isolation and improving relations with the West and Japan. Political parties, including the nld, were allowed to operate openly, hundreds of political prisoners were released, press censorship was lifted and foreign journalists were allowed into the country. For the first time in decades, Myanmar seemed to be on the way toward a more open and democratic society.

the nld took part in the next elections, in november 2015, and scored a landslide victory, winning 255 of 330 contested seats in the 440-member lower house (110 are reserved for delegates appointed by the military.) in the upper house, the nld won 135 of 168 contested seats with 56 of the 224 total going automatically to the military. the USDP had to be content with 30 seats in the upper house and 11 in the lower. the pattern in the 14 regional and state assemblies was similar, with the sole exception being Rakhine State, where the local Arakan national Party (ANP) won the most contested seats. As in 1990, this election should also be seen as a referendum in which the nld repre

sented the people’s desire for change and the USDP stood for the old order. And then there was the ethnic element this time: not only the ANP but also other regional parties did well in their respective areas.

division and strife

But since then, support for the nld has waned in ethnic areas, as demonstrated in by-elections in november 2018, when it won only six of 13 contested seats in state, regional and national parliaments. despite efforts to find a political solution to the ethnic wars, there is no peace and the millions of dollars that the international community has poured into the efforts have seemed to result in the emergence of what critics call a peace-industrial complex that has achieved little more than enriching the foreign as well as local actors who are involved in it. At the same time, the fighting has displaced 100,000 civilians in Kachin State in the north while army operations and civil strife have forced thousands of people, Muslims as well as Buddhists, into temporary camps in western Rakhine State. Military action in Rakhine State has also driven hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingyas across the border into Bangladesh.

the USDP failed to make a comeback in those by-elections, but disappointment with the policies of the ruling party led to regional parties making significant gains. even in Yangon, a long-time nld bastion, criticism of the party, and especially the regional government it leads, has become deep and widespread. there has been little economic progress and many former democracy activists, now nld functionaries, have become isolated from the people who once rallied behind them. Parallels have been made with South Africa’s African national Congress, another liberation movement that became corrupt and authoritarian once it was in a position of power.

in April this year, the Ministry of transport and Communication directed four major telecommunication service providers to block several hundred websites because they allegedly contained “adult entertainment” as well as unspecified “fake news.” A coalition of 250 Myanmar civil society organizations responded by releasing a statement decrying the action as unlawful and contrary to international standards to protect freedom of speech. Media groups also noted that the government has been using the country’s notorious telecommunications Law, which was introduced under overt military rule, to clamp down on free speech. in the most recent development, the nld-led government decided in September to block the Justice for Myanmar website, a move that human Rights Watch branded “an attempt to cover up the Myanmar military’s abuse of power, grand corruption and human rights violations.”

the urban middle class had expected more when they danced in the streets in november 2015, celebrating the nld’s landslide. Simply speaking, while the nld remains immensely popular in rural areas in central Myanmar, where Suu Kyi still enjoys an almost god-like status, many in urban and ethnic areas feel that the party has failed to deliver on its promises of democratic reform, economic development and peace. therefore, the upcoming election will be different from the “referendums” of 1990 and 2015. Few, if any, political observers in Myanmar expect the USDP to make any significant gains but if the trend from the 2018 by-elections continues, the emergence of stronger ethnic parties may turn them into kingmakers whose support the nld may need to form a new government. that could be the case especially in Kachin, Shan and Kayin states, where the nld has lost ground to ethnic parties. in Rakhine State, there is nothing to indicate that the local party has lost support.

Ethnic politics

the nld seems to be aware of this and since the 2018 by-election has paid more attention to ethnic and other communal issues. in 2015, the nld did not field a single candidate from the country’s islamic minority, which is a factor to be reckoned with in urban areas where most Muslims live. this time, there will be several, among them Win Mya, a party veteran in Mandalay who was overlooked five years ago. on the other hand, Muslims from the rural Rohingya community in Rakhine State will most likely remain disenfranchised. At least a dozen Rohingyas have applied to be candidates and, so far, six of them were rejected after officials said they had failed to prove that their parents were citizens of Myanmar at the time of their birth. Applications for the rest are still pending, but there is little hope that they will be recognized because the government — and the general public — regard them as interlopers from Bangladesh and not an indigenous ethnic minority.

dissatisfaction may be growing among the majority Burmans as well, but it has not resulted in any viable alternatives to the nld — and this is where civil society comes into the picture. over the past decade, numerous non-governmental organizations have been formed to safeguard

press freedom, protect the environment, support women’s rights, lobby for land rights, uphold labor rights, and advocate for the interests of young people. it would be a serious mistake to dismiss these as marginal groups with no influence over decision making. Civil society organizations managed to persuade the government to suspend the construction of a Us$3.6-billion hydroelectric power station in Kachin State, a joint venture between Myanmar interests and a Chinese investor. demonstrations have been held against a Chinese-run copper mine in Monywa, northwest of Mandalay, and civil watch groups are monitoring controversial hydroelectric power schemes in the Salween River. various groups of journalists also protest routinely when the media comes under attack. ngos have also monitored recent elections in order to make sure they turned out to be free and fair.

Myanmar was a parliamentary democracy before the 1962 coup that brought the military to power, but one party — the Anti-fascist People’s Freedom League — was so dominant that there was no real opposition in parliament. instead, the then-vibrant media functioned as the unofficial opposition. today, civil society is assuming a similar role and it, rather than the USDP or any other opposition party, will become a factor to be reckoned with in Myanmar politics.

then there is the military — and that highlights Myanmar’s relations with its powerful northern neighbor, China. Much has changed since leaders in Beijing favored authoritarian Myanmar rulers like themselves and were deeply suspicious of Suu Kyi, once a pro-democracy icon whose late husband Michael Aris was a tibet specialist. now, representatives of the Chinese government make no secret in private discussions that they would like to see Suu Kyi and her nld win — and that they are wary of Myanmar’s generals, whom they find increasingly difficult to control.

this twist of events, curious as it may seem, can be explained in the context of realpolitik in today’s Myanmar. While the generals see it as their duty to defend the sovereignty of the nation and lessen the dependence on China — a major reason for implementing democratic reforms and opening up to the West in 20112012 — Suu Kyi is a politician who wants to be re-elected. therefore, she turned to Beijing for economic and other assistance after her previous allies and admirers in the West distanced themselves from her over the Rohingya refugee crisis and the killings of probably thousands of civilians, which she refused to condemn. not surprisingly, she turned almost overnight from being the darling of international democracy activists into a pariah all over the West — and, eventually, Beijing’s favorite.

When the people of Myanmar go to the polls in november, it may not immediately be seen as a watershed in Myanmar’s troubled, contemporary history in the way the last election undoubtedly was. More likely, the country will go from one national and international crisis to another, see the continuation of a seemingly never-ending civil war and experience further regression into authoritarianism. this is a sad commentary on how things have unfolded since the nld scored its massive election victory five years ago. bertil lintner is a journalist living in thailand and author of several books on Myanmar, including Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Struggle for Democracy Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency Since 1948.

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