Almost a decade after Myanmar’s democratic reforms were put into practice, why did the military still manage to easily overthrow the democratically elected government? Analysts say that Myanmar’s democratic process has always been under the control of the military, and that the military-leaning constitution even provided the basis for the coup.
The military decided there was “massive fraud” in the election and staged a coup
According to a statement on Myawaddy TV, a television station controlled by the Burmese military, the military arrested several ruling party leaders because it believed there was massive “election fraud” in the general election late last year.
The military’s televised statement said, “Last year’s multi-party election was marked by errors in the ballots, but the Union Election Commission failed to address them. While national sovereignty must come from the people, this democratic election went horribly wrong and is inconsistent with a stable democracy.”
The statement also said the independent Union Election Commission’s refusal to address the ballot errors and to take action to delay the opening of parliament violated the constitution and undermined national unity and national sovereignty.
The National League for Democracy, or NLD, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar’s democratically elected government, won the November 2020 election in a landslide. The NLD won 396 of the 476 seats in parliament, or roughly 83 percent, surpassing the NLD’s performance in the first election in 2015. In contrast, the NLD’s main rival, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), won only 33 seats.
Some analysts say such election results are embarrassing for military leader Min Aung Hlaing, who had been convinced that the NLD should not have so much support after five years in power.
For more than two months since the election, the Burmese military has been claiming massive election fraud and has claimed to have much evidence of NLD fraud in the election. However, the Union Election Commission and local and international observers have concluded that there is no evidence of election irregularities.
In the week before the coup, several representatives of the military, including Min Aung Hlaing himself, hinted at tough measures, and in a video message on Jan. 27, Defense Force Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing warned that “the Defense Force must act in accordance with the 2008 national constitution, which is above all else and is the mother of all laws, and that failure to comply with the constitution will result in its abrogation. ” This sparked speculation from all walks of Life in Myanmar that the military was going to stage a coup.
Analysts believe there were real problems in Myanmar’s elections, but not so much as to change the outcome of the NLD’s landslide victory.
Gregory B. Poling, director of the Asian Maritime Transparency Program at the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Simon Tran Hudes, a fellow in the Southeast Asia Program, said in a Feb. 1 article on the agency’s Web site, “There were indeed problems, most controversially with the National Democratic Alliance government’s refusal to hold polls in areas where the military and ethnic armed groups are at high risk of violence. This disenfranchises more than a million voters in Rakhine State, not including the already disenfranchised Rohingya. Voting was also cancelled in parts of Shan and Kachin states. But these and other alleged irregularities were not enough to undermine the National League for Democracy’s landslide victory nationwide.”
In the United States, the Biden administration sees this as a military coup against the democratically elected government. A Feb. 2 State Department statement said, “A small group of Burmese military leaders put their own interests above the will and well-being of the people. We reject any attempt by the military to change the outcome of the November 2020 general elections in Burma.”
50 years of military rule, coup in the military’s DNA
Sebastian Strangio, Southeast Asia affairs editor at The Diplomat and author of “In the Shadow of the Dragon: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century,” told Voice of America that the process of changing the country by coup is almost in the genes of the Burmese military.
In many ways, it’s in the military’s DNA,” he said. That’s how they’ve been involved in politics since 1962. They see themselves as the protectors and guardians of the Burmese state. That’s the way they can guard the country.”
However, Stangio said that while the military staged the coup on the grounds of protecting the constitution, the fact is that their coup was inseparable from defending the interests of the military, which has penetrated every aspect of Burma’s economy.
The military ruled Myanmar until the country’s democratic process began in 2011, and between 2011 and 2015, it was the military-backed Consolidation and Development Party that was in power.
In 1962, former Burmese military strongman Ne Win staged a bloodless military coup and thus, controlled Burma for a quarter of a century. For almost 50 years, from 1962 to 2011, the Burmese military held state power and was politically, economically, and socially influential.
Burma’s political transition was also initially driven by the military, and in 1988, nationwide protests broke out. In September of the same year, Myanmar’s Chief of Defence Staff and Minister of Defence, Soe Maung, led the military to overthrow the Ne Win regime, which had come to power in 1962, and take over state power. In September of the same year, Soe Maung promised a multi-party system and said that general elections would be held in 1990, resulting in a degree of political freedom and economic openness in Burma.
Also in 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi founded the National League for Democracy (NLD) and became its general secretary; in 1990, the NLD won the election as the largest opposition party, but the military refused to hand over power and annulled the results. Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for a long Time, and Western countries began to impose sanctions on Myanmar for more than 20 years.
In 1992, Senior General Than Shwe became the top military leader and began a long process of political transition. Some believe he did so in response to protests from domestic democrats like Aung San Suu Kyi and pressure from Western democracies.
“Disciplined democracy” under the military
In 2008, Myanmar introduced a new constitution and held general elections in November 2010. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won the election and former General Thein Sein was inaugurated as the new president, marking the official start of Burma’s political transition.
However, the constitution also reserves considerable power for the military and the union they support. For example, the constitution stipulates that military members hold 25 percent of the seats in parliament; the military has the right to appoint one of the two vice presidents; the government’s defense, Home affairs and border affairs ministers must be serving military personnel; the military has veto power over constitutional reforms; and the military is independent in managing its affairs and is not subject to the president. The military’s decades-long crony interests still control the economic lifeblood of the country.
More problematic is that the constitution even left a back door for the coup. Article 40 of the Constitution already gives the military the power to take over and exercise sovereignty if it endangers national sovereignty, while Articles 417 and 418, invoked by the military this time, stipulate that the president should hand over executive, legislative and judicial powers to the commander-in-chief of the defense forces and impose a state of emergency for one year if it endangers national sovereignty.
This time, the military did not recognize the election and the resulting Congress on the grounds of fraud, and invoked Articles 417 and 418 to take over the government and declare a state of emergency on the grounds that President Win Myint had not initiated the process in accordance with the Constitution.
In an interview with the Voice of America, Sun Yun, director of the Stimson Center’s China program, said democracy in Burma has actually been under the jurisdiction of the military.
She said, “In fact, as we’ve looked at Burma over the last 10 years, right from 2011, since it entered what we call the democratization process, I think there’s a misunderstanding of what kind of democratization Burma is pursuing. In the political language or atmosphere of Burma, the current or the last 10 years of democracy in Burma is a democracy based on the 2008 constitution. And what is different about what the 2008 constitution provides? A very important point is that it treats democracy in Burma as a disciplined democracy. This discipline refers to the democratization process under the jurisdiction of the military.”
Sun Yun believes that this election in 2020 makes the military feel threatened. She said, “For the past 10 years, the military has considered Burma’s politics to have reached a state acceptable to the military based on the 2008 constitution. But last year’s election revealed the NLD’s rising support, and that created a sense of threat for the military.”
Aung San Suu Kyi’s political jiu-jitsu and widening conflict with the military
From Aung San Suu Kyi’s perspective, after her NLD led victory in the general election in 2015, she has maintained cooperation with the military, but some of her moves have also offended the military.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of the founder of the modern Burmese army, has also publicly expressed her deep affection for the military. Some see her rapprochement with the military over the past five years as appeasement, while others see it as her political jujitsu.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s greatest cooperation with the military was over the deportation of the Rohingya in Myanmar in 2017. Aung San Suu Kyi did not condemn the military over the Rohingya issue and emphasized in a BBC interview that she was not a “saint” but a “political figure. In 2019, Aung San Suu Kyi also defended herself against the Rohingya issue at the International Tribunal in The Hague.
She said the accusations of “genocide” by the Burmese military were misleading and did not reflect the real situation in Rakhine State, and that the International Court of Justice should not hear the case. After this defense, Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation in the Western media has hit rock bottom. The West has also been critical of her.
Nevertheless, Aung San Suu Kyi has not won the confidence of the military. Although the constitution is mostly skewed against the military, the NLD has also accumulated more power than is generally expected during the five-year period, which has made the military wary of the NLD.
Under Burma’s constitution, a party must win more than two-thirds of the country’s votes if it wishes to govern alone, which the NLD has managed to do twice. Under the elected authority, the military and Solidarity Development Party (SDP) MPs together account for only about one-third of the total seats in Myanmar’s Union Parliament, making it difficult for their proposals to be passed in parliament, while they cannot block proposals put forward by the NLD, even if they disagree with them.
In 2016, the NLD managed to repeal the Emergency Law, which for decades had given the military broad powers to detain people without charge and allowed courts to convict them with minimal evidence. The NLD had also succeeded in circumventing the constitution by creating a position specifically for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to serve as the de facto leader of the Burmese government.
Since Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s late husband and son were British and constitutionally barred from the presidency, the NLD, by virtue of its seat in parliament, passed a bill to create “a position not found in the constitution,” the “Senior Minister of State,” and elected Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as the de facto top leader of the Burmese government. The military and CNDP lawmakers have repeatedly expressed disagreement with the legitimacy of this position, but there is no way to abolish it.
The NLD has also accelerated the constitutional amendment process since last year, including transferring the military’s power to take over the country in times of national emergency to the president, nationalizing the military, appointing the defense minister by the president, eliminating the presidential eligibility requirement, and reducing the military’s one-quarter ex-officio seats in parliament, although all of these bills have been vetoed by the military.
Murray Hiebert is a senior fellow in the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank. He said these moves by Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD have certainly touched the military’s bottom line and inflamed their conflict with the military.
She went to parliament and demanded changes in the law, changes in the constitution, and that would have weakened the power of the military in politics,” he said.
According to Hibbert, it also adds to the already chilly relationship between Aung San Suu Kyi and Min Aung Hlaing.
Min Aung Hlaing’s personal ambitions
Poling and Thunders of the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies believe the coup is inseparable from the personal ambitions of General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the Burmese National Defense Force.
They said, “Min Aung Hlaing was scheduled for mandatory retirement in July 2021 and was widely believed to be interested in taking over politics. But the NLD’s performance in the November elections dashed all hopes that he or other generals could gain high office with the current constitution.”
Min Aung Hlaing, who will retire this year at the age of 65, was appointed commander-in-chief of the army in 2011, just as Burma’s military government began its transition to a civilian government. This was reportedly part of an arrangement made by Than Shwe to retain power in the military.
After 2015, Min Aung Hlaing began to position himself as a presidential candidate, and he made changes to do so. At one point, he was very active on Facebook: including visiting Buddhist monasteries and meeting with top government officials, among other things. At one point, his Facebook followers were as high as 1.3 million, and in 2018, Facebook removed his personal page due to a crackdown on the Rohingya by the military led by Min Aung Hlaing, while sanctions were imposed on him by Western countries.
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