By any measure, the results of Myanmar’s (Burma’s) general election are remarkable. Following a painfully slow trickle of results, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has won over two-thirds of seats across the two houses of Myanmar’s legislature, giving it the power to elect the president, who will then appoint a new government. But despite much celebration, and misguided Western media coverage suggesting Myanmar will now have its ‘first civilian government’ in five decades, there are enormous challenges ahead.
The NLD’s victory came against formidable odds. While Suu Kyi is widely revered and the military despised, the campaign period was marred by gross irregularities: intimidation and violence; warnings from Myanmar’s powerful military commander-in-chief against voting for someone with foreign ties (Suu Kyi’s two sons are British); bars on opposition campaigning in some districts; and an unconstitutional smear campaign by nationalist-Buddhist monks. The electoral rolls were wildly inaccurate; the Rohingya Muslims had been stripped of their voting rights; and voting was cancelled in 25 percent more village tracts in 2015 than in the last (heavily rigged) general election in 2010 – 3.2 million people had been disenfranchised. There were also many reports of fraud on election day itself.
Given all this, I was surprised that the NLD was still able to achieve a landslide. It is a testament to its popularity, and perhaps also to the self-deception and incompetence of the defeated Union Solidarity and Development Party, which may have swallowed its own propaganda on its widespread popularity and neglected to rig the poll more systematically.
Nonetheless, huge challenges now face the NLD. Above all, it is operating in a system designed by the previous military regime via the 2008 constitution.
First, the legislature must generate a new executive by early 2016. Under Myanmar’s semi-presidential system, the legislature elects the president and vice-presidents; the president then appoints the ministers. All members of the executive must resign any legislative seats and party affiliations. This deliberately insulates the government from popular, democratic control. Moreover, Suu Kyi herself is constitutionally barred from the presidency by virtue of her unfamiliarity with military affairs and her sons’ nationality. She has announced her intention to elect a puppet president, through whom she will govern, presumably as Speaker of the Lower House. This is unconstitutional, the pool of eligible candidates is tiny, and it remains to be seen whether it can work or will be tolerated by the military.
Second, even if her plan works, the military remains entrenched in key governmental positions. The military retains 25 percent of legislative seats, giving it a veto on any constitutional changes, which require over 75 percent support. The commander-in-chief is barely subordinate to the president. He controls all military affairs, and he appoints the ministers of defence, home affairs and border affairs, giving the army direct control over vast swathes of key policy domains, not least the ongoing ethnic conflicts in Myanmar’s borderlands. The National Defence and Security Council ‘floats’ above much of the executive, superintending government business. The military is also constitutionally empowered to seize power should it feel Myanmar’s ‘sovereignty’ is being infringed. And vast army conglomerates retain a key role in Myanmar’s political economy. Part of the reason the NLD were allowed to win was that the military have designed a system to prevent pure civilian supremacy. Either the NLD operates under these severe constraints, and is forced to compromise, or it launches a dangerous confrontation with Myanmar’s most powerful force.
Thirdly, Suu Kyi’s victory is obviously not a silver bullet for Myanmar’s myriad problems. Myanmar is desperately poor, with development indicators barely above Sub-Saharan African levels. The state is profoundly corrupt and dysfunctional at every level. Ancien regime forces remain entrenched in the bureaucracy and judiciary. The economy is dominated by around twenty conglomerates founded by ‘cronies’ of the previous regime. There is serious conflict between the Bamar ethnic majority and the ethnic minorities, some of whom remain in armed rebellion, with others in tenuous ceasefires, awaiting a proper political settlement. And Myanmar is marred by communal violence against Muslims, particularly the Rohingyas, who most Myanmar regard as illegal ‘Bengali’ immigrants.
Suu Kyi and the NLD have had little to say about any of these issues. On the last two in particular they have been virtually silent, even purging the NLD of Muslim candidates to avoid any assignation of sympathy. Suu Kyi has also been remarkably unsympathetic to farmers resisting land grabs linked to military- and Chinese-backed investment projects. Suu Kyi merely repeats the mantra of ‘the rule of law’, as if that is easily achieved or would magically solve Myanmar’s complex problems. It remains to be seen whether they have a coherent plan for government. If not, popular disillusionment could be profound.
In short, the NLD’s victory is not the beginning of the end for ‘military rule’. It is simply the end of the beginning, the start of a long and uncertain struggle for popular control of Myanmar’s state and real liberation for its people.
Lee Jones is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Queen Mary, University of London. He is author of ASEAN, Sovereignty and Intervention in Southeast Asia(2012), Societies Under Siege: Exploring How Economic Sanctions (Do Not) Work(2015) and, with Shahar Hameiri, Governing Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation (2015). He tweets @DrLeeJones.
Image: FabulousFabs CC BY
