Posted By Min Zin Friday, March 16, 2012
Aung San Suu Kyi takes
her case to the nation
On March 14 Burmese
state TV allowed something that would have been unthinkable just a few months
ago: it broadcast a speech by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Her speech,
which was leaked online
a few days earlier, was partly censored by
the authorities, who deleted some unflattering references to the still-powerful
military.
But even the broadcast
version enabled Suu Kyi, who is running along with other members of her party
in the much-anticipated parliamentary by-election on April 1, to deliver a
powerful message to a national audience. In her speech, she
said that her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), will
pursue three priorities
should it achieve a presence in parliament: It will work to promote the rule of law, to end the civil war, and to amend the 2008 constitution that
grants 25 percent of the seats in parliament to the military without any of its
candidates having to stand for election. Aung San Suu Kyi also pledged to support
market-oriented economic reform, improvements in education, language rights for
ethnic minorities, greater opportunities for young people and women, and
freedom of association for labor unions and farmers.
These are all issues
that will no doubt resonate with the majority in this ill-fated country. But
how is the NLD supposed to achieve them even if it gets all 47 of the seats
that it hopes to win in the election?
The current
parliament, created after a 2010 election that took place according to rules
laid out by the same military regime that has controlled Burma since 1962, is
dominated by the generals and their stooges. It's not just that a quarter
of the national assembly is reserved for members of the military. About 80
percent of the remaining 498 seats are controlled by the Union Solidarity
and Development Party (USDP), the tame party of the old junta. So it's hard to imagine how Aung San Suu Kyi will be able to deliver on her campaign promises unless the military cooperates.
So why, then, should
we care about these elections at all?
First of all, the
generals want to show that they're capable of holding free and fair
elections, since that's the only way that they'll get the U.S. and the European
Union to lift the sanctions they imposed on Burma years ago. For that
reason, I'm inclined to think that the election is likely to be conducted in an
internationally acceptable manner -- at least on the day of voting, and perhaps
with some local exceptions. Although there are some reports of irregularities
with voter lists in the run-up to the elections, sources in the government say
privately that they wouldn't even mind if the NLD wins half of the contested seats,
since that would lend additional legitimacy to the whole process.
But Suu Kyi is aiming
for a sweeping victory, treating the by-elections as a referendum of public
support for her leadership. Some analysts estimate that the NLD can win up to
two-thirds of the available seats.
I believe that the NLD
will fare very well in the races held in the main cities, but I'm afraid that
the party candidates will run into problems
in some rural constituencies. The reasons are simple: intimidation
and bribery. The USDP in the countryside has both a strong grassroots
organization and a lot of financial power. Farmers and the rural poor are
expected not to disappoint local party bosses politically if they want to avoid
harassment, and sometimes they even benefit from a bit of microcredit
administered by its strongmen. The USDP's local thugs are notorious for their
sanctions against opposition supporters. In a recent interview with the Voice
of America (Burmese Service), the USDP campaign chief for Rangoon said that his
party will seek votes from the public by going door to door in the
neighborhoods (and by that he doesn't mean just handing out campaign
literature). The rural people who live in remote and scattered communities can
expect the ruling party to wield both incentives and punishments to dissuade
them from voting for the NLD.
Aung San Suu Kyi is
well aware of such techniques. In one of her public speeches, she advised
people to pretend to be fearful of the authorities if they are pressured to
vote against their will - and then to vote for the NLD.
The NLD can hope for a
sweeping victory only if people practice what political scientists call
"sincere voting" -- votes from the heart. Let's see if they can get
away with it.
