Hi
everybody….I’m back after a short sojourn in Australia. Unfortunately, I missed
election day but by all accounts it was quiet and passed without incident. This
was in Yangon at least but reports throughout the country were the same. There
were some minor incidents but overall the election was peaceful. It was
apparent fairly early in the count that the National League for Democracy (NLD)
would win a majority of the seats contested. The Union Solidarity and
Development Party (USDP) conceded as much very early in the count. The NLD did
not contest the last election in Myanmar which was won by the USDP. The NLD
last won an election in 1990 but then the military didn’t accept the decision
of the electorate and simply hung on to power. Of course this made Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi a household name in the west. She would’ve been president but the army
decided to keep her under house arrest, denying her even the chance to say
goodbye to her dying husband in England. It also led to Burma/Myanmar becoming
a pariah state subject to economic sanctions and continued international condemnation.
The military no doubt would like to have kept Myanmar in the dark and reap the
spoils of power but a combination of factors has mitigated against this.
Cyclone Nagis in 2008 which killed an estimated 138,000 people. This is only an
estimate as the junta did not keep official statistics. The junta’s worst
crimes however weren’t the lack of statistics but the wilful obstruction of
international aid efforts. Having plane loads of food, water and medicines
sitting on tarmacs in Bangkok and Yangon as the government went through a
charade of providing aid workers with visas didn’t do much for their
legitimacy. Their insistence on still protecting their secrecy despite the
world watching appalled has probably gone someway to their present predicament.
Another factor which is probably harder to control is the rise of South East
Asia. Myanmar is realising that as a South east Asian country it is being left
behind by the likes of Thailand and Malaysia. Of course neither of these two
countries are bastions of democracy and cronyism and corruption are commonplace
but they are still able to attract investment and are not subject to the
economic sanctions that Myanmar is. There has to be a change! So elections were
held in 2010. The NLD boycotted the election as many of their members were
banned from standing. The military backed USDP won the election. Even though an
election was held it was far from democratic.
So now 2015 we have a new election. Well the first thing that has to be
said about it is that it is not democratic either. The military is guaranteed
25% of the seats in parliament which means any party which wished to form a
majority has to win more than 50% of the seats….more like 70% of the seats. The
NLD did win enough seats to form a government which leads to the next bit of
military skulduggery. The USPD has changed the constitution barring anyone from
becoming president who has children who were born overseas. Fairly strange clause
one might think….but wait who has children born overseas? Why Aung San Suu
Kyi! Even though The Lady (as she is
known) leads the NLD she cannot become the president. She will never (as
someone wrote) have her Nelson Mandela moment! Oh she will sit in parliament
but she will not be president. Due to the army’s 25% of the seats and a veto it
will never allow a change to the constitution allowing The Lady to become
president. She will be able to have a say in who will be president but won’t be
one herself. On the other hand, she has,
however, made it clear that regardless of who is the president she will be
calling the shots. She believes that she is leader of the party and as such the
president of the country will have to their loyalty to her and the party first.
So far two
weeks after the election it has been fairly peaceful here. In Yangon at least.
When the euphoria has settled and the new president finally selected then the
hard work will begin for the NLD. Myanmar is still a country that suffers from
internal conflict. Although peace agreements were signed recently there are
still ethnic armed rebel groups active. This of course is part of the perennial
problem that Myanmar has of unifying the country. There has been a state of
civil war here for over 60 years as the government fights a variety of groups.
Unifying the country is one of the major challenges facing any government. As I
write the army is in another conflict with Shan State separatists.
The economy
is also going to be a massive challenge for the incoming government. Years of
isolation, sanctions, mismanagement, corruption etc have left a mess. The
dictatorship of Ne Win caused almost irreparable damage. Only recently are
sanctions being lifted and investment starting to flow in. There is enormous
work to be done in areas of building capacity in formulating economic and
political policy. Previously government has been too reliant on extractive
industries such as mining and logging. Both of these industries have caused
enormous damage whilst making some people rich it has sold of part of Myanmar’s
heritage. As I write a disaster in a jade mine has claimed over a 100 lives.
More attention will have to be given to developing human capital. This means
investing in education to ensure young people today have a hopeful future. The
outlook is fairly pessimistic as no governments anywhere seem to making these
sort of investments. Indeed, inflation is already taking hold here. The price
of basic foodstuffs has been rising while the kyat (local currency) has been
falling. The people who will suffer the most from this situation are the
poorest. Walking around the streets of Yangon gives a perspective of the type
of poverty that exists here. People eke out a living selling just about
anything imaginable or simply by begging. More pressure on basic costs can only
bring more hardship.
The election
has also has also highlighted the plight of Muslims in this country. Already many,
such as the Rohingya, were disenfranchised while politicking went on between
the right wing monks who accused the NLD of being pro Muslim. The NLD in its
turn didn’t endorse a single Muslim candidate meaning there are no Muslims in
parliament. Simmering tensions in places like Rakhine state could boilover
unless the NLD stands up to extremists. The NLD has already seemingly washed
its hands of the Rohingyas by not making any statements regarding their future.
Hopefully the NLD will remember that not too long ago its members were also
suffering human rights abuses.
