As Myanmar gears up for its general election next month, there is a growing sense of disappointment and disillusionment among its citizens, who believe that the upcoming polls will be nothing more than a charade. This is due to the fact that the ruling junta, which seized power through a military coup earlier this year, has made it abundantly clear that it intends to control the outcome of the election in order to maintain its grip on power. In this article, we will examine why the junta’s plans for the election are likely to render it meaningless, and what this means for the future of democracy in Myanmar.
Myanmar’s military regime has taken the unprecedented step of deregistering the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that won the November 2020 nationwide elections. The State Administration Council-controlled Union Election Commission (UEC) has given existing political parties 60 days to re-register under the amended Political Party Registration Law, but forty parties, including the NLD, have refused to do so. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and 50 other existing parties have registered for future polls, whilst a further 13 new political parties have applied for registration. The SAC has yet to announce a date for its planned polls, and speculation surrounds the regime’s election plans.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the SAC, made a speech at the annual Armed Force Day parade on 27th March, acknowledging that the conditions in Myanmar are not conducive to holding elections. The on-going armed resistance to the military coup has rendered large parts of Myanmar into conflict and humanitarian disaster zones, with armed conflict and civilian suffering on the rise.
Since the military coup, the NLD has been subjected to extreme violence, with hundreds of party members arrested and imprisoned under politically motivated charges of corruption, including party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been imprisoned for 33 years on a number of spurious offenses. Property of NLD party members has been seized and destroyed, and security forces have targeted party members for assassination. Several hundred USDP members have also been killed in targeted assassinations by resistance forces.
Of the 50 parties who registered for new registration, the Union Solidarity and Development Association are the one most closely aligned with the military. Many of the parties are smaller and will only contest in state and regions, not nationally. Significant ethnic parties such as the Pa-O National Organization Party (PNO), the Kachin State People’s Party (KSPP), and the Mon Unity Party (MUP) have registered, but their involvement in future elections will likely suffer from diminished community support as divisions widen between the subservience of geriatric leaders and angry youth resisting military rule.
There is no doubt that the NLD made its share of enemies due to its political culture being deemed to be rigidly hierarchical, with blind fealty to Aung San Suu Kyi. The National Unity Government (NUG), rising partly from NLD members and anchoring its legitimacy in the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH, or national assembly), is still grappling with the vestiges of this culture. The NUG is currently dealing with the issue of consensus politics, coalition building, inclusivity, and the urgent necessity of collective leadership with anti-SAC armed groups throughout the country.
The deregistration of the NLD, SNLD, and others is not the final step in the grotesque illegitimacy of the SAC’s elections plans. Given the circumstances, it is highly unlikely that any credible elections can be held. Instead, the SAC’s elections are being constructed to dupe the already discredited into some semblance of legitimacy for the military takeover. It will take more than just elections to reset democracy in Myanmar.
