{"id":172786,"date":"2020-11-16T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=172786"},"modified":"2020-11-14T04:03:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T04:03:09","slug":"votes-have-changed-little-in-myanmar-since-suu-kyi-assumed-state-counsellorship-5-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/11\/votes-have-changed-little-in-myanmar-since-suu-kyi-assumed-state-counsellorship-5-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Votes Have Changed Little in Myanmar since Suu Kyi Assumed State Counsellorship 5 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Myanmar\u2019s second experiment with the parliamentary democracy is irredeemably flawed: The constitutional framework in which democratic process is located is categorically anti-democratic.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mandalay\/Myanmar September 14 2020: Young supporters of Myanmar\u2019s main political party (NLD). Photo: Robert Bociaga Olk Bon \/ Shutterstock.com<\/p><\/div>\n

13 Nov 2020 – <\/em>Five days apart, the United States and Myanmar held elections on 3 and 8 November respectively, with record-breaking voter turn-outs.<\/p>\n

\n

In spite of the barrage of Trump team\u2019s lawsuits in the battle ground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia, former US Vice President Joe Biden has been declared the indisputable victor, in both electoral college and popular votes in the US Presidential race, something that has been widely accepted by important US allies in Europe.<\/p>\n

Eight-thousands mile away from Washington, Myanmar voters gave Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD party a resounding re-election mandate for another ruling cycle for 5 more years.<\/p>\n

While the outcome of Myanmar\u2019s election is no comparison to that of the US presidential election insofar as its global ramifications, the two elections share something in common: the losers refuse to concede. In both cases, with no evidence of any appreciable fraud, Donald Trump and his Republican backers in USA and the Union Solidarity and Development Party, the Burmese military\u2019s political proxy, challenge the outcomes.<\/p>\n

Team Trump\u2019s lawsuits are viewed as having no real legal reasoning nor the corroborating evidence for the assertions of the electoral frauds. On CNN News, Harvard\u2019s Constitutional Law Professor Laurence Tribe who also served as a counsel on Al Gore vs George W. Bush case at the US Supreme Court in 2000 dismissed the suits (and their legal reasoning) as \u201cfraudulent\u201d and acts of \u201cwasting money\u201d.<\/p>\n

In Myanmar\u2019s case, former President Jimmy Carter\u2019s Carter Center, an election-monitoring NGO based in Georgia, USA, issued a clear pass. The center\u2019s 10-November-dated statement declares that \u201cvoters were able to freely express their will at the polls and choose their elected representatives\u2026. On election day, a total of 43 Carter Center observers visited 234 polling stations in 10 states and regions. The conduct of voting was assessed positively in 94% of polling stations visited. Where counting was observed, the process was conducted according to procedures and in the presence of party agents. Tabulation of results proceeded smoothly, although access for mission observers to tabulation centers was limited or denied in three cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The incumbent National League for Democracy party won a combined total of 366 seats in both houses of the national parliament: the party only needs 322 seats to retain its parliamentary control and form the second term NLD government.<\/p>\n

The military\u2019s proxy party USDP and the main political opposition suffered a humiliating defeat with its poor win of 21 seats in total. Smaller parties made up of ethnic minorities won the rest \u2013 48 seats.<\/p>\n

On 11 November, following his party\u2019s dismal performance, Chairman of the Union Solidarity and Development Party ex-general Than Htay reportedly demanded a re-run of the entire parliamentary election, having alleged that the NLD-appointed Union Election Commission were engaged in unfair practices and ballot irregularities and tales of dead Burmese persons as registered voters, while openly soliciting the support of the country\u2019s Armed Forces.<\/p>\n

The party of ex-generals openly inviting the military to get involved in the country\u2019s nascent electoral politics is deeply worrying. The parallel between the two contested electoral outcomes ends here.<\/p>\n

Unlike the United States Armed Forces, Myanmar military has absolutely no tradition or history of serving as a professional national defence force: the US military swears allegiance to the Constitution and takes orders from the elected president as the Commander-in-Chief.<\/p>\n

In sharp contrast, since its inception under Japan\u2019s Fascist patronage with Suu Kyi\u2019s father as its first commander, Myanmar military \u2013 or the Tatmadaw it is called in Burmese \u2013 has perceived itself as an armed political organization self-assigned as the ultimate guardian of the nation and the national defence force.<\/p>\n

The primacy of the military has since independence been fast-established, owning to the long-running civil war of 70 years, with various intensities in the large swarth of the country\u2019s underlying regions which are ancestral lands of non-dominant national minorities.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Do-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi--FORSEA\"<\/p>\n

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi | Nadezda Murmakova \/ Shutterstock.com<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So, when the current head of the military, the Commander-in-Chief, Min Aung Hlaing, issued a scathing statement directed at Ms Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s government lambasting the ruling civilian government as weak and incompetent, he was in keeping with the military\u2019s self-perception of itself as the nation\u2019s guardian.<\/p>\n

The English language statement reads, \u201cweakness and deficiencies which were never seen in the previous elections are appearing now. They can have adverse impacts on the image of the election.\u201d It then goes to state that \u201cthe government has the complete responsibility for all the intentional and unintentional mistakes of the commission at its different levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such episodes of public sniping by the military certainly alarm the ethnically dominant Burmese electorate, typically resentful of the military\u2019s constitutional primacy over the (majoritarian) democratic politics. The high voter turn-out of 70 % despite the pandemic, which voted overwhelming for Ms Suu Kyi\u2019s party, may have been triggered by the public\u2019s desire to stave off the blatant election meddling by the country\u2019s military known as the Tatmadaw.<\/p>\n

Or this may also be a sign that the view and sentiment among the largest ethnic bloc of the electorate, specifically the dominant Burmese, ABOUT AUNG SAN SUU KYI borders on the reverence of a cultist leader as opposed to a democratic politician.<\/p>\n

By many indicators, Aung San Suu Kyi is a failed leader, for instance, in the areas of economic improvement, expansion and protection of human and civil rights, advancement of peace and ethnic reconciliation, and the fundamental reforms regarding the country\u2019s repressive laws over the last 4 years.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet her popularity with the majority public remains all-time-high. Her dismal performance has not dented the wall of loyalty, enthusiasm and reverence the public have erected for her.<\/p>\n

Beyond the attitudinal shift against the military\u2019s direct interference in elections, votes in in Myanmar have changed little in the country\u2019s body politics since the Burmese military held its first-ever multiparty elections in May 1990, the results of which the generals never honoured.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s elections in Myanmar have drawn widespread and sharp criticisms from various governments, international media outlets and human rights organisations for two major failures: the categorical exclusion of Rohingyas as a ethno-demographic category and the partial and full cancellations of elections in the predominantly non-Burmese regions or states on spurious grounds of \u201csecurity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Aung<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy Myanmar\u2019s Genocide Denial Will Come Back to Haunt It\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

However, this criticism is misdirected: it was to be expected that no Rohingya would be allowed to either vote or contest in the election, particularly given that Myanmar\u2019s slow genocide of Rohinya is ongoing \u2013 as the UN\u2019s International Independent Fact-Finding Mission had officially observed in one of its influential reports.<\/p>\n

An estimated 2 million voters in 7 ethnic minority states were denied the right to vote as the NLD-government-appointed Union Election Commission (or UEC) cancelled polls either partially or wholly in 57 townships. That is a significant number of eligible voters out of a total of 37 millions nationwide.\u00a0 On his part, the Commander-in-Chief blamed the Ethnic Armed Organisations in Shan, Kachin, Chin and Rakhine states where many of the cancellations took place here for the effective deprivation of the voting rights and opportunities.<\/p>\n

As of this writing, as a clear, the military leadership has intervened directly in this year\u2019s elections: it announced that there will be by-elections in Rakhine and Shan states where the elections have been wholly or partially cancelled by Suu Kyi\u2019s Government-appointed Union Election Committee in certain townships on the pretext of the absence of security, arising from the military conflicts.<\/p>\n

The military\u2019s intervention in the country\u2019s democratic reforms and electoral politics are systemic, not episodic or isolated incidents.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The military have constitutionally decided that only the \u201cdiscipline flouring democracy\u201d is the tailor-made democratic regime which best suits the 54 million Burmese people, and the generals are going to play the role as disciplinarians or guides. In this constitutional \u2013 and psychological \u2013 framework, the generals are granted power to stage the coup, in order to save this Discipline Flouring Democracy from chaos, instability, anarchy and armed conflicts.<\/p>\n

Noteworthy is the fact that neither their military training nor their career experiences has prepared the military leaders for their role as the sole guide and disciplinarian of the country\u2019s second experiment with parliamentary democracy \u2013 the first was from independence in 1948 till the coup of 1962.<\/p>\n

In order to discharge their guiding role, the military\u2019s Constitution \u2013 of, for and by the military \u2013 reserves 25% of the parliamentary seats in all state and national parliaments for the un-elected military officers, which are in turn organized in the pyramid command structures. These officer-MPs act as parliamentary squads, and unassailable voting blocs, obeying without fail the command from their squad commanders, who in turn receive their commands from the Commander-in-chief.<\/p>\n

What is more? Any changes in the Constitution can only be made only with more than 75% of the votes \u2013 in the parliament where 25% of the votes are unshakably controlled by the military as the unshakable bloc of military \u201cMPs\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the aforementioned ways, Myanmar\u2019s second experiment with the parliamentary democracy is irredeemably flawed: The constitutional framework in which democratic process is located is categorically anti-democratic.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The constitutional rule with its checks and balances is, both in theory and in practice, designed to prevent any single individual or any organ of the state from having the unchallenged and unchallengeable grip over national affairs, including policy contents and decision-making.<\/p>\n

Ms Suu Kyi has tried her very best to cajole the Burmese generals whom she calls \u201cmy father\u2019s sons\u201d who have \u201cinherited\u201d the national military which her father founded 3 years before she was born. She had waged charm offensives to win the hearts and minds of the generals while marginalizing and discarding any former party deputies, formerly jailed fellow dissidents, and human rights supporters at home and abroad. She has rejected both publicly and privately any talk of transitional justice \u2013 even the post-apartheid-style truth and reconciliation commission \u2013 in order to signal to the military that her leadership and policies will in no way pose a threat to the military, both the leadership and the rank and file members. In addition, the NLD leader knows the genocide of the Rohingya \u2013 initiated and executed by the military over several decades is the generals\u2019 red line she cannot and is not prepared to cross. She went to the International Court of Justice \u2013 the UN\u2019s highest court to deal with legal disputes among member states \u2013 to defend the state (with all its constitutive organs, most relevantly the armed forces).<\/p>\n

Despite all her efforts designed to persuade the military establishment to allow her to make some of the crucial amendments (for instance, the amendment to reduce the 25% seats to 5% over 10 years), the military has only stuck to the Constitution which puts them at the unrivalled commanding position \u2013 as the sole institution above the Law and the popular will.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, when Ms Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy defeated the military\u2019s Union Solidarity and Development Party in a landslide win, both the majoritarian and ethnic minority parties were jubilant. The journalists covering Myanmar elections on the ground in the country wrote about the palpable and contagious popular optimism \u2013 that the country might turn a new leaf after 50 years of life and politics in the generals\u2019 repressive and pauperizing grip.<\/p>\n

At the Guardian<\/a>\u2019s request, I penned the following words as part of my sobering cautionary note, or to put it crudely, served as the party pooper in the midst of national \u2013 and even worldwide euphoria. How little votes have changed since:<\/p>\n

Having secured their ill-gotten gains \u2013 billions of dollars amassed from the proceeds of jade, natural gas and other national assets and a quarter-century of the military\u2019s \u201cBurmese Way to Capitalism\u201d\u2013 and with the constitutional right to take power back 24\/7, the generals will keep on smiling.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Guardian. Nov. 9, 2025: Why Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s \u2018Mandela moment\u2019 is a victory for Myanmar\u2019s generals<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is win-win: incremental change with echoes of the Arab spring, without bloodshed or chaos. The public and opposition get to experience another ephemeral wave of euphoria. And democratic governments in Washington, London, Paris or Canberra can now hold up Burma as a success story of the kind of business, diplomatic and military engagement they practise vis-a-vis China. Aung San Suu Kyi can feel vindicated about her Mandela-like status and her choice of a pragmatic strategy of no longer rocking the boat and fighting hard for human rights.<\/p>\n

Never mind that the \u201c democracy\u201d midwifed by these powerful actors excludes and undermines the welfare and interests of the country\u2019s jailed student and labour activists, farmers, ethnic minorities in the civil war zones, and the disenfranchised Rohingya people and other Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Aung<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDe-imagining Myanmar and Reimagining Free or Federated States<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>A Buddhist humanist from Burma, Maung Zarni is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, former Visiting Lecturer with Harvard Medical School, specializing in racism and violence in Burma and Sri Lanka, and Non-resident Scholar in Genocide Studies with Documentation Center \u2013 Cambodia.\u00a0Zarni s the co-founder of <\/em>FORSEA<\/a>, a grass-roots organization of Southeast Asian human rights defenders, coordinator for Strategic Affairs for <\/em>Free Rohingya Coalition, and an adviser to the <\/em>European Centre for the Study of Extremism, Cambridge. <\/strong>Zarni holds a PhD (U Wisconsin at Madison) and a MA (U California), and has held various teaching, research and visiting fellowships at the universities in Asia, Europe and USA including Oxford, LSE, UCL Institute of Education, National-Louis, Malaya, and Brunei. He is the recipient of the “Cultivation of Harmony” award from the Parliament of the World’s Religions (2015). His analyses have appeared in leading newspapers including the <\/em>New York Times, The Guardian and<\/em> the Times. Among his academic publications on Rohingya genocide are <\/em>The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar\u2019s Rohingyas (Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal), <\/em>An Evolution of Rohingya Persecution in Myanmar: From Strategic Embrace to Genocide, (Middle East Institute, American University), and <\/em>Myanmar\u2019s State-directed Persecution of Rohingyas and Other Muslims (Brown World Affairs Journal). He co-authored, with Natalie Brinham, <\/em>Essays on Myanmar Genocide.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – forsea.co<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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