{"id":62985,"date":"2015-08-31T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=62985"},"modified":"2015-08-30T01:00:49","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T00:00:49","slug":"burmas-half-hearted-commitment-to-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/08\/burmas-half-hearted-commitment-to-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Burma\u2019s Half-Hearted Commitment to Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

27 Aug 2015 – <\/em>Burma\u2019s parliamentary election Nov.\u00a08<\/a> should have been a moment to anticipate with joy: another step in the nation\u2019s emergence from military rule. But democracy is not strictly about the ballot box. It is also about the process \u2014 the nature of the competition for power, and whether that political struggle is free, fair and inclusive of all. By this measure, Burma is falling short.<\/p>\n

\"Aung<\/a>

Aung San Suu Kyi this month. (Ye Aung Thu\/AFP vua Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Some of the problems are long-standing. Twenty-five percent<\/a> of parliament seats are reserved for unelected members of the military. The country\u2019s most popular figure, Aung San Suu Kyi, is barred from running for president by a provision in the constitution, written with her in mind, that the military and its allies recently refused to alter.<\/p>\n

The regime of generals and former generals who began the transition away from military rule still exert a heavy hand on the political process. This month, President Thein Sein dramatically ousted a rival from the ruling party\u2019s leadership<\/a> \u2014 the rival was speaker of the lower house of parliament and considered a potential future president \u2014 in an abrupt and arbitrary purge that appears to have been at the behest of the military. Not very democratic at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are supposed to be going along the path of democratization but events over the last couple of weeks show that we are not very far along that path yet,\u201d Aung San Suu Kyi said in an interview<\/a> with Agence France-Presse.<\/p>\n

Burma\u2019s regime is aggravating and exploiting ethnic conflicts in the Southeast Asian nation of 56\u00a0million people<\/a> also known as Myanmar. Most egregious has been its treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority that has long been persecuted and that increasingly has been subject to violence and denied citizenship. In recent days, the country\u2019s election commission ruled that a sitting Rohingya member of parliament who had served in the government\u2019s ruling party could not run for reelection because he was not a citizen, and thus ineligible. The New York Times reported<\/a> that the commission said the parents of U Shwe Maung were not citizens at the time of his birth. He said the finding was absurd, that his father was a career-long officer in the national police force, and he is appealing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Behind the incident is a much larger process of culling Rohingya from voter rolls being carried out as a result of pressure from Buddhist nationalists. Tens of thousands of Rohingya voters may lose their right to vote in November, although they have voted in the past. This kind of mass disenfranchisement is intolerable for a genuine democracy.<\/p>\n

For too long, the Obama administration has been overly optimistic about Burma\u2019s transition. Before the election \u2014 now \u2014 would be a good time to broadcast a necessary and unvarnished message to Burma\u2019s leaders that a Potemkin democracy just won\u2019t do. The election process and the vote itself must be free, fair and all-inclusive.<\/p>\n

Read more about this topic:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s View: Burma\u2019s grim reality<\/a><\/p>\n

Fred Hiatt: Aung San Suu Kyi on the state of democracy in Burma<\/a><\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s View: Navigating Burma\u2019s fragile transition<\/a><\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s View: A failing engagement with Burma<\/a><\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s View: Burma\u2019s Rohingya exodus is a looming disaster<\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 washingtonpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The regime of generals and former generals who began the transition away from military rule still exert a heavy hand on the political process. Burma\u2019s regime is aggravating and exploiting ethnic conflicts in the Southeast Asian nation of 56 million people also known as Myanmar. Most egregious has been its treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority that has long been persecuted and that increasingly has been subject to violence and denied citizenship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}