I have mentioned the name of Burma a few times in class room discussions. In addition, in my previous blog, I also mentioned Burma as a nation-state which gained independence from its British rulers in 1948. After its independence, the country was under the democratic rule for a few years. In 1962, General Ne Win (a member of 30 commandos who fought back British) staged a coup d’état and seized the power. Under his dictatorial rule for more than 26 years, the country adopted a close-door policy and isolated itself from other countries. Burmese’s way to socialism was established with borrowing the ideas of socialism from China and Union of Soviet Russia. With socio-economic sufferings due to economic mis-management, the citizens of the Burma nation-wide participated in uprisings in 1988 and demanded the immediate dissolution of the government. Finally General Ne Win stepped down with his last speech with words “the guns will shoot you directly not to the air” spoken in a live television broadcast nationwide. After thousands of protesters were killed by the military, General Saw Maung staged second coup d’état in 1990.
In 1990, free election was held the first time in 30 years of history and National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a Noble Laureate 1991 won the landslide victory. In the process of power transfer from military to civilian government, the military regime was divided into two camps—one to transfer smoothly and the other to remain in power. As a result, General Saw Maung was believed to be assassinated by his subordinates and his life was claimed in a helicopter crash. The country ended up with the third coup d’état again by General Than Shwe in 1992. Since then, he ruled the country for more than two decades. Aung San Suu Kyi ended up living in under house-arrest for more than 17 years out of twenty years of stay in Burma. General Than Shwe ruled the country with his iron fist. During his ruling, there were uprisings and thousands of demonstrators including monks who are highly revered were also killed.
Miller (2004) asserts that “transfers of power are, by their very nature, moments of potentially extreme political instability. Not infrequently, in many political systems, they engender small or great violence. When successful, elections serve to contain that instability (Miller 2004, 506).”
It was evident that from the time when the demonstrators demanded the General Ne Win to step down and the time General Than Shwe held the general election in 2010, the country faced extreme political instability. Those in power were observed as those who wanted to cling to the power forever. However, the story did not end here. Accordingly to Miller (2004), the transfer of power is successful, the election should limit the instability. Well, I do not see this has happened in Burma. Why? Please allow me to elaborate more.
A constitution was drafted which favored the military regime to take a strong hold in the future politics of Burma. Drafting a constitution took more than a decade. Only selected ethnic minority groups were invited in preparing the constitution and all other opposition parties were excluded. A military backed party which is led by retired generals was established for one party election in 2010. The party forced many people and its civil servants to do advance voting. The international community including United Nations asked General Than Shwe to allow the media presence in election and poll places. However, the media was not allowed. Advance votes were manipulated in tallying in order to have wining scores for pro-junta party candidates. This was evident with what Miller (2004) argues:
“At the core of this system are polling places…the citizens…administrators…machines that collects votes…the practices and technologies used to tally votes…the audit trails generated at each stage that certify individual tallies (Miller 2004, 507).”
Now the country is having its first parliamentary meeting in sessions. Two third of parliamentary seats were occupied by the retired military. A few minority leaders were given inactive positions. There is a saying “old wine in a new bottle”. However, the old government even does not bother to change a new bottle, but changing military uniform to civilian cloth is good enough for them. The creditability is needless to say “in question”. The government does not gain creditability locally and internationally. In fact, Burma is a democracy-in-waiting country in Asia with uncertainties, instabilities and underdevelopment. The only certainty is that the people there must find the ways themselves to survive at the gun point.
References
Miller, C.A. 2004. Interrogating the Civic Epistemology of American Democracy. Social Studies of Science 34(4):501-530.
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