Myanmar's spoiled vote for
democracy By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK - On May 10, Myanmar holds a
national referendum on a new constitution, a
charter which very few of the military-run
country's citizens have actually seen and one
which the media and commentators are barred from
publicly criticizing in the run-up to the vote. If
passed, the charter will move the country into a
new political era, though one still firmly
controlled by the military.
Myanmar's
military rulers are leaving little to democratic
chance, as they apply restrictions and processes
to orchestrate a "yes" vote, which by most
international standards will not be considered a
free and fair referendum. To be sure, without
opinion polls, public sentiment is hard to gauge
in Myanmar's tightly controlled society.
The vote significantly represents the
first time since 1990 general
elections, which military-backed
candidates resoundingly lost to the opposition
National League for Democracy (NLD), that
Myanmar's voters will go to the polls. The
military famously annulled the 1990 election
results and set in slow motion a 14-year process
for drafting a new charter aimed at paving the way
for new general elections.
There are
competing interpretations of what the vote
actually means. Some analysts believe both rural
and urban voters, frustrated by the government's
severe mismanagement of the country, will
overwhelmingly vote "no" as an expression of their
discontent.
"They see it as a referendum
on the military government; so expect a resounding
'no' from them," said a Western aid worker in
reference to rural voters in the country's main
central rice growing area. "It's the first
opportunity since the 1990 election that they have
had to express themselves," she said.
Others view it differently. "I'm going to
vote 'yes' because I'm tired of the top brass
running the country, and doing it very badly,"
said a military colonel who wanted to remain
anonymous due to concerns over his personal
safety. "It's time to get them out of government
and a new constitution is the only sure way of
doing that," he added.
"You don't need to
read the constitution to know its simply
conferring power on the military for eternity,"
said an elderly Burmese academic who likewise
wanted to remain anonymous. "The choice is simple
- a vote in favor of adopting the constitution
means we want the military to play the leading
role in politics and run the county," he said.
For its part, the military has repeatedly
promised the referendum will be transparent, fair
and systematic. Political opposition groups and
diplomats, meanwhile, have expressed strong
concerns that the results could easily be rigged
in the military's favor.
For instance, the
regime has already said the results at each
polling station will not be announced, even at a
provincial level. The only announcement of the
vote's result will come from the military's
equivalent of an electoral commission in the new
capital of Naypyidaw. "This is very different from
the 1990 elections, when the election results were
made public at each local polling station," said
Zin Linn, a former political prisoner and now
spokesman for the Burmese government in exile. "It
means they will be able to manipulate the results
to their own ends."
Adding to those
concerns is the fact that the general public, not
to mention the political opposition, will not be
allowed to scrutinize the actual vote counting. A
senior general recently told military and
government officials in Yangon that only the last
ten voters before the polls close would be allowed
to stay and witness the actual count.
"These last 10 voters who can monitor the
counting of the votes by the poll commission
members will certainly be members of the Union
Solidarity and Development Association, who Than
Shwe has given the job of running the referendum
and getting the result he wants," said Win Min, a
Burmese academic at Chiang Mai University in
northern Thailand.
See no
evil Significantly, international
election monitors have been banned from overseeing
the vote and it is likely that only a few
regime-friendly foreign journalists will be given
visas to cover the referendum. Foreign monitoring
is essential if the referendum is to have any
international credibility, the former United
Nations rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar,
Paulo Pinheiro, told Asia Times Online in an
exclusive interview.
"After decades
without an election, at least international
observers could verify the conditions of the
vote," said Pinheiro, who served in his UN
capacity for seven years through April this year.
"And the UN has a unit that just deals with
elections, but the military government has refused
their help."
"I've been following
political transitions throughout the world,
including Asia for more than 30 years and I am yet
to see a successful transition to democracy
without a previous phase of liberalism," he said.
"There isn't the faintest sign of that yet in the
case of Myanmar."
Indeed, state-run
newspapers are predictably flush with statements
endorsing the new constitution. "To approve the
state constitution is a national duty of the
entire people, let us all cast a 'yes' vote in the
national interest." Meanwhile the local media have
been forbidden from reporting the "no" campaign,
which has been perpetuated on the Internet and by
political opposition groups.
The
government has issued orders banning any criticism
of the new constitution and violations are
punishable with a possible ten-year jail sentence.
Those who have dared to defy those orders have
come under physical attack by pro-government thugs
and at least twenty young NLD members have
recently been arrested for wearing T-shirts that
read "Vote No".
The NLD has nonetheless
launched a vigorous campaign in opposition to the
constitution. "For the people who have the right
to vote, we would like to encourage again all
voters to go to the polling booths and make an 'x'
[no] mark without fear," the NLD urged voters in
statement released to the press last week. It
nonetheless portrayed the process as a sham. "An
intimidating atmosphere for the people is created
by physically assaulting some of the members of
[the] NLD," its statement read.
International observers endorse that
assessment. "The whole process is surreal - to
have a referendum where only those who are in
favor of the constitution can campaign," said
Pinheiro in an interview. "A referendum without
some basic freedoms - of assembly, political
parties and free speech - is a farce. What the
Myanmar government calls a process of
democratization is in fact a process of
consolidation of an authoritarian regime," he
said.
The new constitution took more than
14 years to draft, a tightly controlled process
that excluded the NLD's participation. The actual
constitution was only revealed to the public a few
weeks ago and is now on sale at 1,000 kyat per
copy - the equivalent of US$1 in a country where
more than eight out of 10 families live on less
than $2 a day. Even then it's nearly impossible to
find copies, according to Western diplomats who in
recent days have scoured the old capital of Yangon
in search of the document.
Under the
proposed constitution the president must hail from
the military, while one-quarter of the
parliamentary seats will be nominated by the army
chief and key ministries under the military's
control, including the defense and interior
portfolios. According to the charter's text, the
army also reserves the right to oust any civilian
administration it deems to have jeopardized
national security.
NLD leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, meanwhile, will be barred from politics under
the charter because she was married to a
foreigner, the eminent British academic and
scholar of Tibet and Buddhism, Michael Aris, who
died of prostate cancer in 1999. Nonetheless, the
military is pitching the passage of the new
charter as a step towards multi-party democracy,
as laid out in the junta's seven-stage roadmap to
democracy.
The junta's second in command,
General Maung Aye, recently told a parade of new
recruits that the constitution would pave the way
for democracy. "Comrades, it is the Tatamadaw
[military] that is constantly striving for the
emergence of a constitution capable of shaping the
multi-party democratic system," he told the army
recruits last week.
But even if the junta
fixes the referendum's results in its favor, it
will face other major challenges in the run-up to
general elections in 2010. That includes the
formation of a transition government, which will
entail the wholesale sacking of the current
military cabinet, many of whom have entrenched
business interests protected by their positions.
It also in theory must allow new political parties
to be formed and freely associate and campaign to
contest the 2010 polls.
These steps will
all likely be delayed substantially if there is a
significant "no" vote at next week's referendum.
While the real vote count may never be made
public, top military leaders will know whether or
not voters support their envisaged transition to a
form of military-led democracy. Depending on how
the people vote, a negative result could cause
Than Shwe and other top junta officials to yet
again redraw their political reform roadmap.
Larry Jagan
previously covered Myanmar politics for the
British Broadcasting Corp. He is currently a
freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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