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Myanmar holding landmark election

Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party is expected to win big, but even a landslide may not bring significant change

YANGON, Myanmar — Pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has spent the past two months greeting adoring crowds throughout the country. Thousands of supporters wearing red shirts and brandishing the flags of her opposition National League for Democracy party have spilled onto the streets in the hopes of catching a glimpse of her.

On Sunday, Suu Kyi’s popularity will be put to the test.

Myanmar is holding a landmark election that is expected to usher in its first democratic transition of power after more than half a century of military rule. If the vote is free and fair, Suu Kyi’s NLD party, campaigning on the promise of change, is expected to win by a landslide. But concerns about voter disenfranchisement, violence and the exploitation of religious nationalism have cast doubt over the credibility of the process. And whatever the outcome, the military will retain a dominant role in politics as it holds an effective veto over constitutional reform and is allotted 25 percent of seats in parliament.

Amid a mood of celebration in the country’s commercial capital, many are pinning their hopes on Suu Kyi. “She is educated, brave, and she has a lot of influence at the international level,” said Myo Myint Aung, a 55-year-old NLD supporter, speaking before a major Suu Kyi rally in Yangon last Sunday. “It is already 50 years under a dictatorship system, and nothing is changing. It is still a dirty system.”

Myanmar has been run by a cadre of army leaders since the country’s democratic leadership was ousted in a 1962 coup. The ruling military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, or USDP, came to power after a 2010 election that was boycotted by the NLD and widely discredited by the international community.

Since then President Thein Sein, a former general, has rebranded himself as a reformist by freeing thousands of political prisoners, loosening restrictions on the media and promoting free market reforms. His party is now campaigning on a platform of economic development and protecting the rights of the country’s majority Buddhist population. Estimates suggest the USDP could win 15 percent of seats, mostly in areas dominated by the military and civil servants, who in 2010 were forced to vote for the ruling party.

The U.S. government, which has lifted most economic and diplomatic sanctions on the former pariah state, views Sunday’s poll as a crucial test of the military’s commitment to democracy. U.S. diplomats have warned the ruling party that they will not turn a blind eye to foul play.

But the election campaign has been fraught with controversy. Earlier this year, the government stripped nearly 1 million people, most of them members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, of their right to vote, citing concerns about their citizenship. The country’s election commission, whose chairman has publicly backed the USDP, later scrubbed nearly every Muslim politician from the candidate list. It also canceled voting in 608 village tracts, mostly in two states composed mainly of ethnic minorities, Shan and Kachin, ostensibly due to ongoing civil conflict. Up to 10 million people are estimated to have been excluded from the vote, including many migrant workers who were unable to register due to errors in voter lists. The government has blamed the problems on the election commission’s incompetence, not fraud.

“There’s no doubt that the exclusion of millions of voters … will be quite damaging to the poll,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. “The Myanmar government was well aware of the huge numbers of their citizens working outside the country and could have easily planned for a workable and inclusive absentee voting system — and it’s a damning commentary on the government and the [election commission] that they failed to do so.”

If [the authorities] do not play dirty, the NLD will definitely win.

Nay Soe

chairman, NLD campaign in Botahtaung township

Naing Ngan Linn is a candidate of National League for Democracy (NLD) party who was injured in a knife attack while campaigning for Myanmar's upcoming elections. He is attended to by staff and medical personnel at Yangon General Hospital on Oct. 30, 2015.
Ye Aung Thu / AFP / Getty Images

Suu Kyi’s party says it has filed more than 100 complaints with the commission, citing concerns about harassment of its candidates, the destruction of election billboards, vote buying and the exploitation of religion for political ends. Last week, NLD candidate Naing Ngan Lin was seriously wounded in a machete attack while campaigning in Yangon. The government was quick to blame a “drunken brawl,” despite eyewitness testimony suggesting he was targeted.

“If [the authorities] do not play dirty, the NLD will definitely win,” said Nay Soe, chairman of the party’s election campaign in Yangon’s Botahtaung township. He has been working with the NLD since the brutal crackdown on Myanmar’s student uprising in 1988 and recalls a raid on his house in the weeks ahead of the 1990 elections for the crime of owning pictures of then-parliamentary candidate Suu Kyi.

The NLD won that election with more than 80 percent of parliamentary seats. But the junta later annulled the vote, put Suu Kyi under house arrest and spent the next two decades drafting legislative changes that would entrench military rule. Under the country’s 2008 constitution, the military is not only guaranteed a quarter of seats in parliament but is exempt from civilian oversight and has full control over key government bodies, including the ministries of immigration and home affairs and the police force. Myanmar’s ethnic minority communities, which make up roughly 40 percent of the population, are prevented from governing their own states.

Like many others, Nay Soe does not distinguish between the USDP and the military, which damaged the country's economy and shuttered universities during its lengthy tenure. The ruling elite continue to siphon off billions in revenue from the country’s vast natural resource wealth despite the introduction of Thein Sein’s reforms, according to a recent report by the advocacy group Global Witness. The government has declined to respond to the allegations. Thein Sein has meanwhile been dismissive of calls for greater change, deriding those who push for reform as “communists.” “We have changed from a military regime to a democratic government elected by the people,” he said in a campaign speech last week. “What more change do you want?”

In October, the election commission briefly threatened to delay the poll, citing concerns about the impact of flooding that struck the country in August. That provoked a quick backlash. The commission has also been criticized for failing to clamp down on the use of anti-Muslim propaganda in campaigning. Several USDP members have been spotted at rallies organized by Myanmar’s Buddhist hard-line group, the Ma Ba Tha, which has sought to paint the NLD as anti-Buddhist. It is unclear how big a role religion will play on Sunday.

“I think the activities of Ma Ba Tha will sway a significant number of voters away from the NLD, especially in rural areas,” said Yan Myo Thein, an independent political commentator based in Yangon.

He added that Suu Kyi has sought to avoid appearing as a threat to Buddhist nationalists. For example, she culled every Muslim candidate from her party’s rolls and has shied away from addressing the persecution of the Rohingya minority.

[The election] is a big turning point for our country, but at the same time it is just a very small step on our very long journey to democracy.

Moe Thway

National Youth Congress

The NLD is fielding candidates in almost all of the nearly 1,200 constituencies up for grabs, a decision that angered the leaders of smaller ethnic-based parties who fear they will lose out. Given the army’s guaranteed seats, the party needs to win 67 percent of seats to gain an absolute majority in parliament and have a shot at electing the next president.

Yan Myo Thein predicts that Suu Kyi will seek to form a coalition government, bringing together the army, USDP and ethnic parties, even if her party wins an absolute majority. Because her late husband was British, she is constitutionally banned from running for president. But in comments on Thursday, Suu Kyi said that if the NLD is victorious, she would "be above the president." 

Many have been keen to temper expectations of the poll. The vote is unlikely to challenge the military’s key political and economic interests, including its veto over constitutional reform and multibillion dollar stakes in the country’s oil and mineral industries. Nor is the election expected to bring greater political power for Myanmar’s ethnic minorities.

“Just like all the previous elections, this election will not address key issues relating to ethnic rights and aspiration such as self-determination,” said Zoya Phan, an ethnic Karen activist and campaigns manager at Burma Campaign UK, an advocacy group. “Whoever wins the elections, the military still has ultimate control over Burma, guaranteed by the 2008 constitution. As a result, attacks and discrimination against ethnic minorities will continue.”

The army has escalated its offensive against ethnic minority rebels who refused to sign a controversial nationwide cease-fire agreement last month. Hundreds of political prisoners remain behind bars, and the police recently arrested three online activists for criticizing the military on Facebook.

“[The election] is a big turning point for our country, but at the same time it is just a very small step on our very long journey to democracy,” said Moe Thway, a veteran pro-democracy activist and spokesman for the National Youth Congress, a local election monitoring group that is dispatching more than 1,000 observers on Sunday. “As long as we cannot build peace among all the different ethnic groups and we cannot amend the constitution, [the election] is nothing. It is just a crazy game.”

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