Burma’s military junta has taken steps to ensure it does not lose the country’s general election – which meant opposition groups such as Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy had to decide whether it was actually worthwhile taking part.
Pictures of Myanmar’s first election in 20 years are starting to dribble through now. Election fever is not a phrase that comes to mind. The polling station selected by the government officials for filming looked positively deserted. Meanwhile, Myanmar’s national television station broadcast an instructional video on golf. Nobody here in neighbouring Thailand is particularly surprised by this.
We would like to be there ourselves but foreign journalists have been denied visas. Nor will there be any scrutiny by independent poll monitors. It’s all part of the plan. The ruling junta in Myanmar – formerly known as Burma – has gone to great lengths to avoid the unsettling prospect of election night nerves. The generals and the people of this impoverished state already know who is going to win.
The last time the people of Myanmar went to the polls in 1990, the military-backed party was roundly defeated. The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won 80 per cent of the vote. The generals ignored the result and rounded up its critics. Ms Suu Kyi has spent much of the past 20 years under house arrest. More than 2,100 other political detainees, including NLD members, student activists and Buddhist monks are wasting away in jail.
This time the junta has taken greater care to get the right result. To start with, it changed the constitution. 25 per cent of parliamentary seats and many of the key posts in government – including the presidency – are now reserved for the military.
It didn’t stop there however. It has set up its own party to contest the election, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). Backed by the resources of the state, the USDP has fielded candidates for all 1157 seats in the election – no small matter when each candidate must put up a deposit of $500US, more than a year’s wages in Myanmar. The majority of the other 37 registered parties are contesting just a handful of seats.
The USDP also hired the country’s top singers to promote it in a flashy television ad: “We the USDP are for the people, we will always be helping and caring,” goes the rather attractive jingle. The other parties have largely been ignored by the nation’s state-controlled media.
The junta’s careful electoral planning has put the opposition in a bind. Do the regime’s critics participate in a flawed election or turn their back on it entirely?
Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD decided on the latter. In fact we have seen secret footage of campaigners actively trying to convince the public not to turn up to vote.
Not everyone agrees however. Some have broken with “the Lady”, as Ms Suu Kyi is reverently known, and scraped together enough money to run. Their argument goes something like this: opposition parties will gain a legal footing in parliament and in other institutions, and the generals may begin to loosen their grip on power if they don’t feel threatened by these new “democratic” institutions.
Still, opposition parties cannot openly criticise the junta. They cannot organise rallies. They are unable to campaign in small groups. It is a tough gig getting elected in Myanmar if you are not “regime-approved”.
It does beg the question, why are the generals are bothering to hold an election at all? International pressure has got something to do with it – it’s more difficult to do business when the west has you marked down as a “pariah state”.
So today marks a tiny step for the people of a country that use to be called Burma. They will have to make the best of it because the process of change is going to be a slow, slow process.