Limited Democracy for Burma
Secretive Junta Plans Guided Elections to Wrongfoot Opposition
The Burmese military junta is planning limited democracy elections - mostly to try to marginalise pro-democracy opposition figures. How will it work?
When the previously sclerotic military junta that has suppressed Myanmar (Burma) for decades suddenly announced that it was moving its capital to Naypidaw, there was widespread surprise. After all, Naypidaw was then little more than a clearing in the jungle and, even a couple of years later, it is not apparent that many of the necessary government buildings are finished and most ambassadors have declined to move their embassies from Yangon (Rangoon). What was the reason? Three main explanations have been put forward, none of which alone appears to be entirely persuasive alone. First, there is the fear of a naval invasion by the USA – the generals do fear the west and the discovery of oil has raised the diplomatic stakes. Yet it hardly seems likely that the Americans have the will or the resources to embark on yet another overseas invasion. Second, there was an argument about efficiency which seems to hold no water at all. Third, there was the argument that Yangon was a remnant of the British colonial period and that the country deserved a new capital that was both post-colonial while also paying homage to the powerful Burmese empires of the past.
Yet there may have been a more subtle element in play than any of these. The junta has announced a return to democracy and a revamped parliament will sit in the new Naypidaw assembly house. This is a limited form of democracy to be sure – one quarter of all seats will go to loyal military officers straight away and a number of other provisions will control exactly who is allowed to be elected and who not. For example, anyone with a criminal record will be ineligible to stand for election and this means that, since the junta has put most pro-democracy leaders in prison at one stage or another, the country’s leading political brains will not be in the parliament. The nature of the elected parliament under these conditions can be well-imagined.
The leading pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has something of a quandary to face. The NLD has remained steadfast to the claim that the 1990 election, which it won by a landslide, means they are the legitimate government of the country and house-imprisoned leader Aung San Suu Kyi the genuine prime minister. By participating in the election, they would effectively cancel their own claim to legitimacy. By not participating, they will have to miss out on what little power they might otherwise obtain.
