THE POLITICS OF BURMA'S “DEMOCRATIC” TRANSITION

Abstract

Many have dismissed the military-controlled transition to “democracy” in Burma as a sham that will only further entrench military rule. Others, however, view it as an opportunity to break the army's long-standing stranglehold on power and start a process of gradual reform. The present article considers the transition from a strategic perspective. After briefly revisiting the history of military rule in Burma, it examines the politics of the transition and considers possible scenarios in the short, medium, and longer term. It concludes that, although the military clearly has no intentions of surrendering control of the government, new political leaders, institutions, and processes might open opportunities to improve governance and, over time, transform politics, especially if democrats play their cards right.

Notes

¹See the lively debate on various Burmese news websites, including Democratic Voice of Burma (www.dvb.org), Irrawaddy Online (www.irrawaddy.org), and Mizzima News (www.mizzima.org).

²The term “change” is used in this article to refer broadly to social, political, and economic progress.

³See, for example, National Democratic Institute 2010; Ghai 2008; Burma Lawyers' Council 2010; Martin 2010.

⁴Callahan 2003, 18.

⁵For a detailed analysis of military state building since Independence, see Taylor 2009.

⁶Pedersen 2004.

⁷See Kivimaki and Pedersen 2008.

⁸The roadmap was formally announced by former prime minister and chief of military intelligence, General Khin Nyunt (Khin Nyunt 2003). Yet, it essentially reiterated the details of a transition plan first set out by Senior General Than Shwe and the SLORC as a collective in 1992, and Than Shwe has pushed ahead with it since the purge in Khin Nyunt in October 2004. In fact, it has widely come to be seen as the “retirement plan” for the Senior General, intended as a safeguard for himself and his family, as well as the military's institutional interests.

⁹For an elaborate statement on the self-image of the Burmese military, see Hla Min 1999.

¹⁰The second point refers to the step-by-step transfer of power to a new democratic government under the new constitution, as elaborated in steps 3 to 6.

¹¹Much criticism has been voiced about the military's supposed constitutional right to declare a state of emergency and take over state power in the case of ill-defined threats to national security. The constitution, however, is ambiguous on the issue. While there is a clause to that effect under “Basic Principles,” the explicit “Provisions on State of Emergency” reserve that right for the president. In any case, given the military's current political orientation, it is likely to take power at any time it feels that its interests are threatened, whatever the law says.

¹²Government of Myanmar 2008.

¹³See Human Rights Watch 2008; Institute for Political Analysis and Documentation 2009.

¹⁴Informal reports from a number of districts in the days right after the poll suggested that the actual “yes” vote varied from a high of 65 to a low of only 30 percent. Davies 2008.

¹⁵The party is headed by Prime Minister Thein Sein, and the list of other senior members reads likes a “who's who” of the current regime, with numerous recently retired generals, government ministers, deputy-ministers, and businessmen with close ties to the regime. The full list of candidates, though, is more mixed (see further below).

¹⁶Civil servants and members of Gongos supposedly have been ordered to vote for the USDP. There have also been numerous reports of community leaders being bribed to deliver the votes of their communities and villagers being pressured directly by local authorities into giving advance votes for the USDP, typically as a quid pro quo for local development projects and other benefits, although threats have also been used at times. See, for example, “USDP to secure advance votes,” Irrawaddy Online, 13 October 2010, www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19722 (accessed 1 November 2010); “USDP vote buying begins,” Irrawaddy Online, 13 October 2010,www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19721 (accessed 1 November 2010); and “Illegal USDP campaign tactics,” Irrawaddy Online, 7 October 2010, http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19671 (accessed 1 November 2010). It remains unclear how much of this is centrally directed and how much is the result of USDP members using their personal power and connections to strengthen their candidature. Either way, there is little to separate the state and the USDP.

¹⁷Most opposition parties have been approved. However, the Election Commission rejected three Kachin parties, including the locally influential Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP), supposedly due to their links to the armed Kachin Independence Organisation. It even blocked the leaders of the KSPP from running as independents. A few individual candidates from other parties have also been rejected.

¹⁸See, for example, Lakshmibai 2010; Ba Kaung 2010; and “Walking away from an unfair election,” Irrawaddy Online, 10 August 2010, www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19187 (accessed 1 November 2010). This is, of course, symptomatic of decades of repression, which have created a pervasive climate of fear in the general population and make any mobilization of active support for change extremely difficult.

¹⁹The financial costs of participation have proven to present major problems for most independent parties, which have had to dramatically reduce the number of candidates and run their campaigns on a shoestring.

²⁰Horsey 2010.

²¹Naming individuals would be unwise. First, the information is sketchy and the credibility of sources hard to verify. Second, anyone so named could suffer from a hard-line backlash, as happened to former prime minister and head of military intelligence General Khin Nyunt in the early 2000s after he became the “darling” of the international community.

²²While widely feared for his role as head of intelligence in monitoring and suppressing dissent, Khin Nyunt oversaw the most open period in Burmese politics in decades. He was the architect of ceasefires with most of the former insurgent groups and actively sought to improve relations with the West. Indeed, Aung San Suu Kyi at one point in 2004 remarked to a close friend that she believed the general was genuine about seeking change. Interview by the author, Rangoon, March 2004.

²³The distinction between hard-liners and soft-liners should not be overstated. The actual distribution of views is complex and not internally consistent across different issues. For the purposes of this discussion, however, soft-liners are understood generally as officers who recognize the need for some measure of political and economic liberalization.

²⁴Maung Zarni 2010 (Bye). See also Callahan 2000, 43.

²⁵The three generals in question are reportedly slated to take over the top posts in the armed forces. Htet Aung Kyaw 2010. A number of Burmese in interviews with this author have similarly described younger commanders as generally more open-minded and less distant from society, particularly when it comes to socioeconomic issues.

²⁶See Pedersen 2008.

²⁷Selth 2002.

²⁸Burma, in the 1970s, won two awards from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) for promoting literacy.

²⁹29. According to a government official interviewed by the author, the government felt it necessary to ensure that chief ministers are loyal to the president, this supposedly to avoid a repeat of the debilitating splits in the executive that happened twice in the 1950s. He further observed that, in reality, the president will have to appoint someone who has the approval of the local parliament as otherwise the legislature can simply block all legislation the chief minister sponsors. While such explanations are hard to assess, they do point to the need to look below the surface and beyond the distrust that often leads observers to interpret every element of transition in the worst possible light.

³⁰Ministries have already been given instructions to bring their regulations into line with the new constitution, and this has created some interesting developments, such as a request to the ILO for help in drafting a labor union law (unions are banned in Burma).

³¹Moreover, the socialist system did change over time, in part in response to societal pressures, and might well have seen further reforms had the process not been cut short by the 1988 uprising and the return to overt military rule. Ne Win in 1987 called on his own government to institute market economic reforms and “stop lying” about the situation in the country (Haseman 1988). It was also he who in his retirement speech the following year, with the political crisis deepening, first suggested that the country might consider introducing a multiparty system.

³²Nyein 2009. Also Min Zin 2010; Maung Zarni 2010 (Bye).

³³South 2006.

³⁴Pedersen 2004.

³⁵In the early 1990s militant members of the opposition made repeated demands for the responsible officers to be brought before human rights tribunals or tried by the international community in absentia. More recently, members of the NLD have expressed support for the international campaign to establish a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the military for

³⁶Maung Zarni 2010 (New).

³⁷For a perspective on what such a new policy might look like, see Pedersen 2011, forthcoming.