Myanmar: And miles to go before she sleeps

Before the elections, there were worries and doubts, mostly among those outside Myanmar, about how things would turn out. It was feared that there would be a great number of election-day shenanigans like phony ballots or security thugs threatening voters, that could result in widespread riots. In every way, these by-elections represented a crucial reality check on the regime's political reforms that began only a year ago under the current presidency of U Thein Sein.

 

The victory of Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy should not have been under any doubt. At her campaign stops, hundreds of thousands of people, stretching as far and wide as the eye could see, gathered to hear her spoke. It was a spectacle of the ultimate force which the current regime must reckon with. To the majority of the people of Myanmar, she is their champion, their salvation, and their tantalising hope for a new era.

 

The 43 seats (out of 45 contested) won by her party will not do much in terms of amending a constitution engineered to keep the status quo of the military. 

 

There are 600 members in the Myanmar parliament, 25 per cent of whom represent the army. The military and retired generals still hold the nation's top positions. But it would be wrong to dismiss the landslide victory by Aung San Suu Kyi and her party as simply a token. 

 

As the scale of the NLD's victory began to emerge, the party won 95 per cent of the contested seats compared with 82 per cent in 1990. It is clear that the people of Myanmar have spoken. The NLD will now be the main opposition in parliament, whose "elected" members were handpicked by the junta in the 2010 general election. It is expected that the presence of the NLD, especially its leader and founder, will liven the parliament and improve the quality of the debates. And history has taught us that on many occasions an army of one can win a war. In Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, we see a perfect combination of her iron will, and the will of the people, who are pinning their future squarely on her shoulders.

 

The road ahead will not be strewn with roses for the daughter of Bogyoke(General) Aung San, who was called the father of modern-day Burma. It will be long and ardous.

 

There is fear that the sweeping victory by the NLD may spook hardliners to stage a bloody return at a time when the NLD's relatively youthful political experience may not live up to the task it has been mandated with after these elections. There is serious concern about Aung San Suu Kyi's ability to meet the enormously heightened, perhaps unrealistic, expectations of her supporters. 

 

There are questions over the patience of the military, as well as that of the people - a combination could become a combustible train-wreck.

 

The history of democracy in the country also represents a cause for concern. After independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar, Burma then, was already a country at war with itself. For more than a decade, the Burmese army fought not only communist insurgencies but also an assortment of ethic rebels and drug militias. Those long battles were a key reason that the military grew exponentially in size (from 2,000 to 400,000) and ferocity. It led to the overthrow of the civilian government in 1962, and the door to the outside world was swung shut to put a complete stop to any interference in the military's prosecution of the war. The result of these armed conflicts, and the ensuing international sanctions and isolation, is the widespread, abject poverty of the people. 

 

Thant Myint U, a historian and civic leader contends that democracy in Myanmar should not be compared with a Prague spring, but more with Afghanistan or the war-torn-nations of sub-Saharan Africa, and far more complex.

 

Myanmar is an ethically diverse nation, with distinct 135 ethnic groups recognized by the government. The central government has entered into ceasefire agreements with major armed ethnic rebels, most recently the Shan and the Karen, but the question remains how long the truce will last.  If the country’s British style majoritarian electoral system was not able to quell intense ethnic bickering and aggrievement in the past, it is unlikely to succeed in the future.  To address this inherent internal conflict in a sustainable manner, a reform of electoral rules and political structure of the country is needed.

 

 

There are at least two reasons to believe in Myanmar's overall safe path toward democracy: Daw Ang San Suu Kyi and the current president U Thein Sein. The Soviet Union had Mikhail Gorbachev, South Africa had Frederik Willem de Klerk, both credited for the peaceful transition of their respective countries into free nations. Myanmar has this bespectacled and bookish former military man who, in his short tenure so far, has done so much for the political reforms that lead up to the weekend elections. By all accounts, U Thein Sein is genuine, a man who has responded to the bottled-up yearning of the people for a better life by accelerating democratisation. He is known to be extremely loyal, but also conciliatory. The aged military guards do not have to fear that he will put them in padlocks. He is known to be clean, fair and sincere in his reform effort. 

 

Unlike the families of the junta members before him, his family stays out of the limelight and leads an unostentatious life. Only a year after Thein Sein came to power, the country is halfway between authoritarianism and democracy. 

 

Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Tein Sein are believed to get along well. The challenge for each of them is how not to personalise the fragile reform process but widen the coalition of like-minded collaborators. For a country that lacks just about every basic necessity - political, financial, health and educational - they both need each other if Myanmar is to succeed in becoming a vibrant democratic nation that represents a game-changer for Asia.