Election of the weekend IV: Myanmar

If you’re wondering how many “first national election following a coup that took place in 2021” elections are being held in the world this weekend, the answer is “two.” A very brief recent political history of Myanmar. Following decades of brutal authoritarian rule and several years of sustained pro-democracy protests, the 2010’s saw a significant increase in freedom and democracy, with (more or less) free and fair elections. It all began with the Saffron revolution in 2007, a series of sustained anti-regime protests that inaugurated a series of events that ultimately led to significant political change. Long time political prisoner and Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest in 2010 and elected to parliament in 2012. In the 2015 election her anti-coup party won the national election by wide margins, putting her in a leadership position. The military junta never fully gave up power, but for nearly a decade they shared it with an elected government reasonably well. The country in general responded to increased freedom with a social and economic renaissance; the economic growth and increases in standard of living achieved in the 2010’s were genuinely large. Meanwhile, the junta found, in these popular governments, a strong ally in their efforts to repress various separatist Muslim minorities in the hinterlands, to the dismay of the global human rights community for whom she had long been a folk hero. In the 2020 election, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won even more massive majorities, so large that they could theoretically govern without needing any votes from pro-Junta parties (or from the 25% of seats reserved for military appointees). This evidently spooked the Junta, who began restricting and ultimate put an end to a decade of democratization and liberalization with a coup on February 1st, 2021. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party was dissolved and its leaders imprisoned, and the last nearly five years has been, if anything, considerably less free than even the 2007 status quo.

The military, upon dissolving civilian government, declared a state of emergency, which they renewed every six months for several years. The last declaration expired at the end of July, and was not renewed, triggering a legal mandate for new elections within six months. This election is procedurally complicated, due to a number of changes to the rules (this weekend is the first of three phases, stretching over two months). It probably isn’t worth my time to write it all up or your time to read it, as this election is widely viewed as a staged event meant to legitimize ongoing military rule. The Union Solidarity and Development Party, the electoral proxy of the junta, is expected to be victorious. If something more interesting than that appears to be happening, I’ll revisit in a subsequent post about stage 2 and/or 3, but for now, there’s no real reason to think this election will change the post-coup status quo in any meaningful way.