The iron-fisted military junta rule in Myanmar is gently but surely tiptoeing towards a historic power-sharing transition that envisages the reluctant Generals conceding political space to Aung San Suu Kyi’s, National League for Democracy (NLD). The Nobel Prize-winner and the daughter of Aung San (ironically, the founder of modern Burmese Army and negotiator of independence from the British), Aung San Suu Kyi has come a long way to establish her formal credentials with the prevailing junta.
From being denied her rightful political place after winning the 1990 general elections convincingly when the junta refused to honour the results, she led a valiant struggle to usher in changes that despite multiple periods of detention and other violent tribulations.
However, her peaceful means of protest and democratic instincts were instrumental in gaining wide international support — notable visitors, included then, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra — along with support from Western powers and pro-democracy countries like India, nudging the junta towards rapprochement.
The world was changing and the economic sanctions on Myanmar for its terrible human rights record were crippling, to the extent that they remained one of the last vestiges of junta-style regression.
In 2008, recognising the building pressure (Buddhist monks joined the protest to give religious sanctity to the struggle), the military junta proposed a new constitution as part of a ‘roadmap to democracy’. It was a sleight of a hand as it sought to cement the powers of the junta, whilst, ostensibly showcasing its ‘progressive’ move. Critically, it reserved seats for the junta and its affiliates and, most pointedly and damagingly, debarred anyone married to a foreign national the right to hold political office — a move aimed at cutting Aung San Suu Kyi’s wings.
A farcical election, devoid of the popular party NLD, followed and ushered in the rule of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party in 2010, only to have the military junta officially dissolved on March 30, 2011. But, the basic instincts of the junta remained intact and talks about a ‘disciplined democracy’ alluded to a quasi-military rule as opposed to a truly free and participatory democracy.
Still, progress was made in granting general amnesty to a large number of political prisoners, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, establishment of a National Human Right Commission and relaxation of curbs on the press and monetary systems.
In the President, a former Army General, Thein Sein, a certain reformist streak was clearly visible and soon enough Myanmar was accepted into the ASEAN comity and, later, visits to the White House, besides other world capitals signalled a change that culminated in the first openly contested general elections in November 2015.
As expected, the NLD won a supermajority with 86 per cent of the open seats in the Assembly of the Union (well above the 67 per cent cutoff to ensure that the party’s preferred candidate became President — albeit, with the constitutional spanner of disallowing Aung San Suu Kyi’s individual accession, owing to the ‘foreign spouse’ clause). Still, NLD’s punt in participating in the elections, with the full knowledge of the systemic issue debarring its leader, cleared the principal hurdle for the easing of the junta stranglehold.
The tricky jousting starts now, with Aung San Suu Kyi unambiguously declaring that she will hold the real power in the new NLD government. While the Tatmadaw (military) is still smarting from the election results, they have the constitutional comfort of having safeguarded themselves through reservations of 25 per cent of seats in both national and regional parliament – thus, effectively giving the military veto power over any future changes (amending the Constitution will requires the support of more than 75 per cent of MP’s). So, for now the power-sharing arrangement is delicately poised with the NLD having to tread cautiously to ensure the ‘Myanmar Spring’ lives up to its promise.
The basic instinct of the military and the nation will be severely tested, as the military nurses a deep-rooted distrust of civilian ‘party politics’. Myanmar’s myriad internal insurgencies and omnipresent military deployment will also call for the retention of its firepower — even politically, the positions of Minister of Defence, Home Affairs and Border Affairs will remain reserved with the military and not left to the choice of the newly-elected NLD. The ultimate ace of the military muscle thus remains with the junta. However, it would be acutely aware of the domestic and international consequences of any misuse of the same — therefore necessitating a working framework of civil-military equation to address the decades of hostility between the two institutions. Both the civilian politicians and the military establishment will have to tread very cautiously to build trust and not trespass on the interests of the vested powers, at least in the short to mid-term. Not succumbing to the temptations of power and trying to accelerate the process of democratisation will be key (party and international pressures notwithstanding) — Glasnost/Perestroika and the more recent ‘Arab Spring’ are pointers to the premature hastening from one extreme system to the other.
There ought to be a spirit of reconciliation of avoiding questioning the established institutional interests of the military immediately, getting into witch-hunt mode or insisting on the political coronation of Aung San Suu Kyi — this could snap the patience of junta.
India, too, must play its cards sensibly — there is already a precedent of the junta suddenly easing ambush traps to allow escape to trapped India-centric insurgents in the middle of a joint military operation with the Indian Army, when it learnt that the Indian government had decided to give a state honour the then rebel leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. While the Chinese have invested for decades in building a strategic relationship with the junta — Myanmar could now drift towards more ‘balance’ in favour of India, given its avowed support to Aung San Suu Kyi during her days of struggle.
As it is, there had been gentle thawing of relationship even with the junta, so much so, as to allow many ‘operations’ by the Indian Defence forces to neutralise the Northeast-centric insurgent camps on the Myanmar side of the border. There needs to be a patient ‘wait and watch’ policy towards Myanmar as it gingerly treads towards a path of acceptance of its constituents, emotions and contradictions. Truly, a significant experiment in democracy is occurring in the form of the ‘Myanmar Spring’.
The author is former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands & Puducherry.
E-mail: bhopinder593@gmail.com
