Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi speaks during a ceremony to mark the 68th anniversary of Martyrs' Day at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy Party, Yangon, Myanmar, July 19, 2015 (AP photo by Khin Maung Win).
Election Troubles Grow for Myanmar’s Opposition as Army Tightens Grip
Oren Samet Monday, Aug. 17, 2015
After months of deliberation and conflicting public statements, it’s finally official: Myanmar’s principal opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), will contest elections set for Nov. 8. Party leader and venerated pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi made the announcement last month, despite expressed reservations that the election will not be completely fair.
Those sentiments have grown this month, after deadly floods in much of the country killed nearly 100 people and displaced more than 250,000. Suu Kyi and other opposition members worry that Myanmar’s generals may use the floods as an excuse to delay or interfere in the poll. “We do not want this natural disaster to be a reason for upsetting the necessary political process without which our country will not be able to make long term progress,” she said in a video posted online earier this month.
In another ominous sign, the head of the ruling, military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was ousted from his post last week after security forces surrounded the party’s headquarters. Observers likened Shwe Mann’s removal to a purge—all too familiar under the decades of military rule that nominally ended in 2011. Seen as a leading presidential candidate, Shwe Mann, who still retains his post as speaker of parliament, had emerged as an informal ally of Suu Kyi and a key contact for the United States on Myanmar’s democratic transition. Many of his allies in the party leadership were also removed, replaced by supporters of President Thein Sein. A showdown now looms in parliament.
Concerns about elections come as many warn of the government backsliding on reforms that began in 2011. Despite the release of high-profile political prisoners and the easing of media restrictions in 2011 and 2012, today the climate for free expression remains stifling and a real democratic system seems to have moved farther out of reach. Journalists have been imprisoned, military abuses in Myanmar’s several ongoing ethnic conflicts have run rampant and the generals who ruled the country with an iron fist for nearly half a century continue to wield immense political power.
Yet the NLD is still hoping for a commanding victory at the polls. Amending a number of fundamentally undemocratic clauses in the military-drafted constitution—a key priority for the party—remains off the table for now since the military, which holds a constitutionally mandated 25 percent of seats in parliament, has continued to block all attempts to change the charter.
NLD leaders appear to believe, however, that if they can win big in November, their hand will be strengthened in the coming months and years to push for constitutional reform. The party is widely believed to be the frontrunner in a contest that includes over 80 registered political parties. But as election day nears, concerns for the NLD’s prospects are mounting.
In recent weeks, the party has worked to highlight problems with the voter registration process, identifying thousands of errors on voter lists publicly posted in townships across the country. The Election Commission agreed to extend the voter list review period as a result, but the initial errors raise the possibility of widespread disenfranchisement and voter fraud.
Advance voting, which represented a prime vote-stealing opportunity for the USDP during the deeply flawed 2010 elections, remains a problem area as well, despite some changes to the process instituted by the Election Commission.
These issues threaten to undermine the credibility of the contest and could end up costing the NLD votes on the margins. In close constituencies, that could be the difference between victory and defeat for the party. These procedural problems are not the end of the NLD’s challenges, however. That’s because politically the party appears weaker than it did only a year ago.
Despite the enduring national appeal of its leader, Suu Kyi, the NLD faces an uphill battle in ethnic minority areas, such as parts of Shan, Kachin and Rakhine states. Ethnic parties are politically powerful in many of these regions, where the NLD remains strongly associated with the country’s majority Burman elite. Despite the party’s outreach efforts in minority constituencies, many of its leaders, including Suu Kyi, have struggled to avoid coming across as out of touch with the concerns of non-Burman ethnic groups.
In several ethnic states—most prominently Rakhine—the NLD runs the risk of being shut out, as popular ethnic minority parties compete with one another for votes and the USDP acts as the principal potential spoiler. While the NLD proved that it could appeal to ethnic minority voters during subsequently nullified elections in 1990, its popularity among these groups 25 years later remains largely untested. The party’s sweeping victory in the 2012 by-elections—in which it won 43 of the 44 seats it contested in both regional and national parliaments—took place almost exclusively in areas dominated by the ethnic Burman majority.
And then there’s the problem of incumbency. The NLD holds a mere 42 seats out of the 498 up for election in Myanmar’s national parliament, known as the Assembly of the Union. The USDP holds the vast majority of seats, giving the ruling party an automatic leg up. USDP parliamentarians running for re-election will have higher name recognition, and in a first-past-the-post electoral system that could be a critical advantage.
That edge has been further bolstered in recent weeks by support from a prominent group of extremist Buddhist monks known as the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, whose leaders have urged voters to back incumbents in November. The group has already successfully stoked anti-Muslim sentiment nationwide, and its entry onto the election scene on the side of the USDP presents a headache for the NLD. Though monks are not allowed to vote in Myanmar, they are hardly above the fray, and they maintain the ability to influence voters in the conservative majority Buddhist country—at times for the military’s own ends.
Despite these concerns, the NLD is still expected to perform quite well. In fact, most observers expect the party to emerge with the most seats overall. But a strong parliamentary majority seems increasingly in doubt, particularly considering that only 75 percent of total seats are actually up for election; military-appointed parliamentarians hold the rest of them.
As a result, a protracted period of coalition building may be necessary after November’s vote in order to form a government and select a president. But regardless of the outcome of such political maneuvering, if the NLD fails to live up to the sky-high expectations for its performance in November, the prospect of constitutional reform could be in jeopardy. Such a scenario would delay Myanmar’s once-promising democratic aspirations yet again.
Oren Samet is a Bangkok-based researcher and political analyst. His work focuses on democracy and rights issues in Southeast Asia, with a particular emphasis on political dynamics in Myanmar.
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