Burmese elections could be start of a new era
If Aung San Suu Kyi’s party wins, she can seize victory stolen from her 25 years ago
RANGOON, BURMA— It’s about returning democracy to a nation held hostage to more than a half-century of military rule. It’s about hope for a better life for millions of desperately poor people. It’s about being fully embraced by the international community.
But most of all, Burma’s general election on Sunday may prove to be opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s moment of destiny — a chance to seize the victory the junta stole from her 25 years ago.
“I believe in my heart that things are going to change for sure,” said lawyer Kyaw Thu Win, sitting in a sea of red party T-shirts and flags at a recent campaign rally that drew tens of thousands of ecstatic Suu Kyi supporters.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party and its chief rival, the ruling, military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), held final rallies Friday, the last day of campaigning before a cooling-off period. Most analysts, observers and journalists who have toured the country are certain the NLD will win the elections — if they are free and credible. An NLD-dominated parliament would be a democratic milestone for a country that was ruled by the military from 1962 to 2011, when — after intense international pressure — it handed power to a nominally civilian government led largely by retired generals.
The military still retains many powers, but a majority in parliament would give the NLD the presidency and control over the shape of the government and law making.
It will also give hope to many of the ethnic minorities who form 40 per cent of the country’s 52 million people. Burma is home to some of the world’s longest-running insurgencies, fought in regions where ethnic groups are demanding greater autonomy.
“In general, these elections are important because they are the first real indicator of whether the democratic transition is going to take a big step forward or remain in a quasi-civilian middle ground for years to come,” said Thant Myint-U, a historian and government adviser.
Sunday’s elections are not without flaws. The chair of the election commission is an unabashed supporter of President Thein Sein’s USDP. There have been complaints about voting list irregularities and a large number of disenfranchised voters.
But with 11,000 local and international monitors overseeing 40,000 polling stations, observers said they are hopeful any attempts at wrongdoing will be spotted.
Free and credible elections, leading to a smooth democratic transition of power, are key to lifting remaining international sanctions, principally by the United States, which will lead to a flood of foreign investment.
Burma remains a desperately poor country. In a teeming, cacophonous slum in Rangoon, the country’s biggest city, the election has brought hopes of a brighter future.
Htay Aung, a 62-year-old house builder, has worked his whole life to lift his family’s standard of living. “We hope for a government that will develop the country and improve the lives of people like us,” he says, pausing to draw on a long cheroot.
Suu Kyi and the NLD won the last election they contested, in 1990, but the military refused to honour the results and kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for most of two decades.
Analyst Richard Horsey believes Sunday’s result will stand, however, even if the ruling party loses badly. That’s because the military has changed the constitution to protect much of the power it holds. It is guaranteed 25 per cent of legislative seats, enough to block any constitutional amendments.
Winning the elections is only the first step for the NLD to take power. The new parliament will choose the president, and since the military controls a quarter of the 664 seats it has a significant head start. Burma’s complicated electoral process requires that parliament put forward three presidential candidates for a February vote.
Even if Suu Kyi’s party wins the presidential race, she will not be president. The constitution bars her from the job because her late husband and sons are not Burmese citizens.
That does not seem to bother her. She said at a news conference Thursday that she will run the government anyway if her party wins by being “above the president.”
Her stance highlights a divide that has grown between her and some Burma politicians and intellectuals, including former allies. She won a Nobel Peace Prize for defying dictators, but is now accused of having own authoritarian style.
Yet she appears to have lost little of her massive popularity among voters, especially in urban areas and Myanmar’s central heartland. The mystique she enjoys as daughter of martyred independence leader Aung San, as leader of a doomed 1988 prodemocracy uprising and as a stalwart former political prisoner remains undiminished.