Fears have been voiced over the Myanmar junta’s preparations to hold “stage-managed” elections, with tensions rising and the danger the conflict in the country will worsen.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) has just issued a report entitled: “A Road to Nowhere: The Myanmar Regime’s Stage Managed Elections” on 28 March – a day after the Myanmar junta held a celebration of Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw – warning of the dangers of holding an illegal poll that will not represent the will of the people.
The military regime in Myanmar has started laying the groundwork for elections, passing a new party registration law and updating the voter list. But with most of the country engulfed in civil war, and most citizens opposed to the poll, no regime-run vote can be viewed as credible.
Myanmar’s most popular party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), is boycotting the process, with many of its leadership including Aung San Suu Kyi and former president Win Myint in jail, sentenced to lengthy terms, hiding in the country, or in exile.
What is clear, states the ICG report, is that the stage-managed elections will trigger escalated violence, with the regime using the polls as a pretext for intensifying its counter-insurgency operations. It will likely respond to any boycott with repression. In addition, ethnic armed organisations and resistance groups have threatened to disrupt the polls, with some already reportedly killing voter list enumerators.
ICG is calling on Western and regional actors that have tools or channels for influencing Naypyitaw to press the junta not to impose elections by force, and send a strong message that polls are illegitimate and withhold electoral support. At the same time, they are calling on the National Unity Government (NUG) – the parallel or opposition government - to unambiguously oppose resistance attacks on electoral targets.
POLITICAL FACADE
The Myanmar junta, which grabbed power in a coup on 1 February 2021, is pushing ahead with plans to hold national elections, under a façade of legitimacy, seeking to install a pro-military civilian government, having ousted the duly-elected NLD-led government that won the 2020 polls that was so publicly popular.
The junta initially talked of holding the national poll in August of this year but on 1 February 2023, the second anniversary of the coup, the regime unexpectedly, and unconstitutionally, extended the state of emergency by a further six months.
The junta claims the elections will bring in a return to civilian rule, but every indication is that it wants to enshrine its own political pre-eminence in the country. Its template remains the military-drafted 2008 Constitution, which provides as one of its “basic principles” for the military to play the “leading political role” in Myanmar. The coup was intended not to overturn this constitutional order, but to remove Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD from the political landscape, in favour of the military’s vision of sharing power with a civilian administration deferential to its prerogatives. This comes under the rubric of what the military terms “disciplined democracy”.
The elections are intended to achieve this outcome, rather than to be any kind of exercise for channelling the will of the people.
As the report notes, the problem for junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is that his personal interests do not fully align with the military’s institutional objectives. The 2008 Constitution was designed to prevent the emergence of a solitary autocrat, dividing authority between the commander-in-chief and the president, who cannot be the same person. But Min Aung Hlaing does not want to share power. Thus, if he aspires to be president, he must be sure that his replacement as commander-in-chief will do his bidding. If he stays on as commander-in-chief, he will need to install a president who will act as his proxy. To do that, he will need full control of the military’s chosen electoral vehicle, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which in the NLD’s absence, is positioned to dominate the polls.
The extension of the state of emergency, and corresponding election delay, suggest that Min Aung Hlaing is not yet confident in his plans for the post-election period. He may foresee major competition for the top job, probably a more significant consideration than the prevailing insecurity, his stated reason for putting off the vote.
Even with more time to prepare, the regime undoubtedly faces huge challenges in rolling out elections. Given the extent of popular opposition to the polls, the military will have to impose them by force – pacifying areas of the country where its hold is tenuous, attempting to deter attacks on electoral targets, and intimidating poll workers and voters into participating. Resistance groups, determined to disrupt the vote, have already killed enumerators in service of that goal. The lead-up to the polls will almost certainly see a further increase in violence and instability.
DILEMMA FOR NUG
The NUG thus faces a dilemma. As the main anti-regime political force, it logically wants to express its strong opposition to the elections by encouraging a popular boycott and condemning anyone who participates in or supports the polls. That, however, could be seen as endorsing violence by armed resistance groups against electoral targets, making it easier for the regime – and countries that want to normalise relations with it – to cast the opposition as “terrorists”.
Although the NUG does not have control over many resistance groups, as the opposition’s apex political body its reputation could be damaged by their actions.
The report argues that the NUG should therefore issue as soon as possible a set of principles governing dissent from the regime’s elections, stating unambiguously that no one should attack electoral targets.
NO TO FOREIGN SUPPORT
ICG suggests that no foreign government or electoral organisation should provide support for the elections, which the regime would cite as evidence that its polls are legitimate. Foreign governments need to take clear public positions that the conditions are not in place for credible elections. Western countries appear to be already convinced, but others, particularly those in Asia that are anxious to move on from the Myanmar crisis, may be inclined to consider the polls a step toward restoring constitutional rule.
The report argues that Western governments should work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and its chair, Indonesia, to promote consensus as to the conflict risks of the elections and their lack of credibility. Japan and India – which are presidents of the G7 and G20, respectively, in 2023 and which have tended to pursue self-interested engagement with the Myanmar regime – should adopt more principled stances, given the clear security risks of the elections, and the damage that a business-as-usual approach could do to important alliances in the region and with the West.
These countries should use what influence they have with Naypyitaw to press the regime to desist from violently imposing the elections. For its part, the West should engage with Japan and India and encourage them to be more outspoken on the risks of the elections and to deploy their influence with Naypyitaw. It is also worth exploring the space for further steps by the UN Security Council, of which Japan is now a non-permanent member.
In December 2022, the Council adopted its first-ever Myanmar resolution, achieving consensus on Myanmar despite the geopolitical rifts at play. More broadly, countries should work to address the multiple crises in Myanmar by continuing to impose targeted sanctions on the military and its business interests. In particular, they should expand targeted sanctions on senior police and military officers most responsible for post-coup abuses and repression, including in relation to the elections, as well as military-owned or linked companies. They should make clear that election-related repressive violence will be a basis for further sanctions.
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
Donor countries should also continue to provide, and whenever possible increase, assistance to address the humanitarian emergency in Myanmar as well as the long-term health, education and livelihoods needs of its people. It remains extremely challenging to deliver aid in Myanmar. Donors should make funding flexible so as to channel it to the partners that can most effectively reach those in need, including local organisations, and give appropriate amounts of cross-border assistance.
NEW FORM OF RULE
As the report notes, the junta’s emphasis on the elections is not merely rhetorical but reflects a real desire to shift from emergency rule to a more enduring form of military-directed political regime. The constitution, drafted under the previous period of military rule, describes as the “basic principle” that the military have a “national political leadership role” – which the military felt was shrinking under the NLD government (2016- 2021). It has sought to restore and bolster this role via its coup and subsequent violence. The military remains committed to the 2008 Constitution, which is why the regime goes to great lengths to present its actions as conforming to the charter, even though the coup itself was manifestly unconstitutional.
UPTICK IN VIOLENCE EXPECTED
The transition that the regime is engineering is thus from direct military rule to a new political landscape of the military’s design, in which it continues to exercise political authority via an elected administration. Min Aung Hlaing’s repeated references to the constitution suggest that he envisages a return to the military-civilian power-sharing arrangement provided for in the 2008 charter, purged of popular democratic forces such as the NLD. That is, the military would be sharing power with its civilian proxy, the USDP. Such an arrangement would be abhorrent to much of the population.
There is therefore no reason to believe it will offer relief from the political and security crisis set off by the coup. Indeed, in the short term, it is certain to unleash a surge in violence, which has already started.
There are indications that the coming months will see a major uptick in violence as the junta seeks to clamp down and the resistance groups seek to fight back and throw water on attempts to hold their ramshackle election.
