As its election approaches, ‘democratic’ Myanmar faces a multi-dimensional crisis

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As its election approaches, ‘democratic’ Myanmar faces A multi-dimensional crisis


WRITTEN BY ANGSHUMAN CHOUDHURY

23 September 2020

Myanmar is slated to hold national elections on 8 November – the country’s second complete national poll after 2015, and the first to be conducted under a fully civilian government. The last one, which brought Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) to power, was supervised by a quasi-civilian administration led by President Thein Sein. The NLD appears well-placed to repeat its victory this year, although with fewer seats.

But the poll date is shrouded in uncertainty. The COVID-19 caseload in Myanmar, which was among the lowest in the region, has been growing rapidly since the end of August. Although the Election Commission has so far ruled out postponing the election, the government is scrambling to contain the virus. What’s more, the dramatic spurt began in arguably the most strife-torn region in the country today, Rakhine State.

All of this, while the Suu Kyi administration juggles a national peace process to end the country’s six decades-long civil war, alongside a precarious relationship with the Tatmadaw (military), which remains an influential centre of power in the country. A lot, including the vital stats of Myanmar’s democratic experiment, depends on how the country’s key political actors navigate these complexities in the months to come.

A war in the west

While Suu Kyi’s government has faced a myriad of challenges during its tenure, Rakhine State has been its Achilles’ heel. The western border state dominated by an ethnic Rakhine Buddhist majority has seen continuous upheaval since Rohingya insurgents targeted border police outposts in October 2016 and August 2017, triggering a controversial, and potentially genocidal, military campaign against the entire Muslim minority population in the state’s north.

The Tatmadaw, which ruled over Myanmar with an iron fist for almost sixty years, is still keen on maintaining its political mandate. But instead of a junta, it wants to do so through political proxies, like the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the NLD’s fiercest opposition today.

Today, the country stands trial at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) where The Gambia accuses it of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention, while the International Criminal Court (ICC) simultaneously investigates its top military officers for alleged war crimes.

A formidable new insurgency led by the Arakan Army (AA) also emerged in Rakhine around 2017-18. Unlike the ill-equipped Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the AA is a much larger group of heavily-armed, well-trained and remarkably popular Rakhine rebels. Declared an ‘unlawful organisation’ in March 2020 after nearly a year of intense fighting, the AA has positioned itself as an Arakan nationalist organisation seeking to revive the ‘Way of Rakhita’, or the Rakhine way of life. Politically, they want Rakhine State to become a confederate autonomous region, much like the Wa State controlled by the powerful United Wa State Army (UWSA) in the country’s northeast.

While the AA, with all its imported arms and firepower, has given the Tatmadaw a hard time, the group’s rise isn’t just a strategic challenge for Naypyidaw. The AA has become a distinct political force in Rakhine State, buttressed by a strong popular base and widespread networks of mobilisation. This is hardly surprising since the group emerged not out of a security vacuum, but a political crisis fuelled by a deep-seated sense of alienation, insecurity and discrimination felt by large segments of the Rakhine community under a centralised Burman-dominated regime comprising the NLD government and the Tatmadaw.

Through mass outreach and social media campaigns, the outfit has successfully managed to channel popular grievances towards an armed movement for self-determination, while driving away support from the government. The fact that the ruling NLD has already nearly conceded the state in its own poll projections shows the AA’s success in galvanising public opinion against the party.

More importantly, the AA is exploiting an administrative vacuum created by the armed conflict in the Rakhine hinterlands to exert political authority. Over the past year, hundreds of local administrators have resigned out of fear of being linked to the AA and punished by the military, creating vacancies that are being filled by the Rakhine rebels. The AA has reportedly begun collecting taxes, meting out justice, and policing the streets through its political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA). In some ways, the AA is behaving like a pseudo-state, which creates a serious credibility crisis for the military and the government.

But Naypyidaw continues to treat the group as a terrorist organisation, barring it from participating in formal talks. Relations between them are so strained that the group’s chief, Tun Myat Naing, recently accused the government and Tatmadaw of “deliberately” triggering a COVID-19 outbreak in Rakhine State. With no ceasefire deals in sight, fighting is expected to resume once the caseload dips in the state, and is also expected to hinder the election process.

Unless one of the two warring parties backs down, the AA stands to gain decisively. A prolonged attritional war will only give the group sufficient time and space to consolidate its hold over Rakhine State and eventually lay formal claim to the territories under its control. As a corollary, Naypyidaw, with its already-dwindling support base in the state, will continue to see its legitimacy shrink further.

Uncertain peace

When the NLD government came to power in 2015, Suu Kyi promised to end the 60-year long civil war through a national reconciliation process. She hoped to carry forward the endearing legacy of her father, General Aung San, who convened the famous Panglong Conference in February 1947 to build bridges between the Burman majority and northern ethnic minorities. The nostalgia is so strong that Suu Kyi has named her own flagship bi-annual peace forum as the ‘21st Century Panglong Conference’ (21CPC).

The current peace process, which is fully overseen by the civilian government, has achieved some limited success. Ten ethnic armed groups are now party to a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and have been participating in formal talks with the government and military. Three ‘Union Accords’ containing 51 ‘basic principles’ have also been signed between the stakeholders in four iterations of the 21CPC. The latest conference, held in August 2020, outlined a roadmap for implementing these principles and provided assurances that the peace process won’t stall after the November elections.

However, the whole process is hampered by a complex bureaucracy and an ineffective ceasefire monitoring regime that has allowed grave violations to occur, resulting in a steady erosion of trust between the Naypyidaw and some ethnic groups like the Karen National Union (KNU) and Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS). Further, some of the largest rebel groups, including the UWSA and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), have refused to sign the NCA and want to negotiate on their own terms. Others such as the AA continue to engage in armed clashes with the Tatmadaw, which itself refuses to cede any ground.

Fundamental differences exist between Naypyidaw and the NCA signatory ethnic groups over the nature of a federal union Myanmar, and whether the latter should maintain their own armies. These are serious divergences that will require many more discussions to resolve. Yet, the process remains relevant for both parties as a tangible marker of a collective will to end the war for good.

Between two centres of power

Perhaps the most peculiar trait of Myanmar’s democratic experiment is its underlying delicate civil-military relationship. Much of what has occurred since the 2015 elections can be directly attributed to this volatile bilateral dynamic, which will continue to shape the country’s politics.

The military continues to wield significant political power thanks to the 25 per cent parliamentary reservation it enjoys. This political authority flows from the 2008 constitution drafted by the military itself. Earlier this year, the NLD and other smaller ethnic parties made a failed attempt to amend the constitution through a parliamentary process. However, the move was enough to unsettle the Tatmadaw leadership, with one representative telling the media that "any revision that shakes the [current] system is unacceptable".

As the election approaches, the military is making its political fantasies clearer. At a recent meeting with 34 pro-military political parties, the Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, advised them to choose candidates who “understand the Tatmadaw’s role in national politics” and will “maintain the national interest”. The Tatmadaw, which ruled over Myanmar with an iron fist for almost sixty years, is still keen on maintaining its political mandate. But instead of a junta, it wants to do so through political proxies, like the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the NLD’s fiercest opposition today.

Whether a change of guard at the top can alter this attitude remains to be seen. But it is crystal clear that the future of Myanmar’s democracy will be shaped by how deftly the NLD and other pro-democracy forces reconcile with the military’s appetite for a greater political role. If the former push the line and manage to nudge the military back into the barracks, Myanmar’s democratic experiment might have a real chance to prosper. But if things go south, the country may enter a whole new phase of instability and uncertainty.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform. 

Author biography 

Angshuman Choudhury is a Senior Researcher and Coordinator of the Southeast Asia Research Programme at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi, and former GIBSA Visiting Fellow to the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.