A sobering future for Myanmar and the NLD
A sobering future for Myanmar and the NLD
WRITTEN BY EVAN BRANDAW
8 December 2020
In the face of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, Myanmar has emerged from its second democratic election, and the country is abuzz over Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy's (NLD) sweeping landslide victory.
The NLD expanded its already sizeable majority, pushing the military aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) further into political irrelevance while fighting off challenges from a plethora of emboldened ethnic minority and start-up political parties. It now holds 80 per cent of elected parliamentary seats, 396 in total, and appears poised to make a strong push for constitutional reforms that will curtail or even possibly end the military's parliamentary veto and with it, independence from civilian oversight.
However, the NLD's overwhelming popular mandate belies the lack of sweeping change that will occur over the next five years, and political uncertainty and instability are almost certainly on the horizon for Myanmar.
The evolving dynamics of disinformation
One of the most noteworthy aspects of the 2020 general election was the surge in disinformation targeting the NLD just prior to polling day. The effort (likely orchestrated by the USDP) was an escalation of existing anti-NLD disinformation on social media, though in this case, it had little impact on the overall results due to Aung San Suu Kyi's overwhelming domestic popularity.
The rapid spread of disinformation is not a problem unique to Myanmar, but the country is both deeply affected by the issue — due to an underdeveloped free press, and political liberalisation that coincided with a global social media boom — and thus under-equipped to deal with it.
The lack of an heir apparent and the middling popularity of the rest of the NLD raises the question of whether the party can even exist without Aung San Suu Kyi at the helm. Let alone govern with continued majorities.
Facebook, synonymous with the internet in Myanmar, has faced widespread criticism for (allegedly) allowing disinformation, misinformation, and hate speech to run rampant on its platform. While it was more proactive in flagging and removing accounts during the 2020 election, it neglected to monitor non-Burmese language activity, which adversely impacted ethnic minority parties. Moreover, it remains unclear whether Facebook can or will remain vigilant on disinformation outside of the election cycle.
The NLD, for its part, has failed to meaningfully engage the issue of disinformation — instead concerning itself with attacking journalists and the free press. The Union Election Commission (UEC) has issued warnings about peddling disinformation, but it has largely ceded responsibility for monitoring and enforcement to Facebook.
The role of social media in the COVID-19 pandemic and the Rohingya crisis has demonstrated that misinformation and disinformation can reach beyond the political sphere. By shaping public behaviour and the transfer of information, it both exacerbates existing crises and creates new ones, and in the absence of a meaningful response, will continue to do so.
Sidelined ethnic minorities
Myanmar also faces simmering discontent among ethnic minorities. Ethnic parties had been slated to pick up seats after an underwhelming 2015 election, yet their across-the-board losses to the NLD may only deepen the sense of political marginalisation in a country increasingly divided.
In the country's winner-take-all system, the national government — not regional governments — appoint the regions and states chief ministers (equivalent to a governor). That regions cannot choose how they are governed has incensed many ethnic minority parties, particularly after the NLD wielded its majority to kill an amendment that would have required chief ministers to be directly elected.
The NLD offered ethnic parties an olive branch after the election, inviting them to form a ‘national unity government’; yet most ethnic leaders remain sceptical and highly critical given the NLD's track record towards non-Bamar groups.
As the NLD enters its second term, its questionable governing decisions towards ethnic minorities will no longer be excused as ‘growing pains’. As ethnic minorities continue to be marginalised in Myanmar's national political process, the appeal of ethnic armed organisations will only grow.
The state of Rakhine State and a more critical Washington
The fate of the Rohingya also remains in question. The NLD government has downplayed or outright denied the atrocities committed by the military during the 2017 clearance operations, and has acted with little urgency to repatriate the hundreds of thousands cramped in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.
One of the contributing factors to the 2017 violence was the fiercely anti-Muslim sentiment spread by ethno-nationalist actors in Rakhine State (both by ethnic Rakhines and ethnic Bamars, the latter constituting a majority of Myanmar's population). The situation in Rakhine State remains tense and conflict-ridden, particularly after the UEC cancelled elections in several districts, and the structural factors which precipitated the 2017 crisis remain in place today. A significant incident could easily spark another humanitarian disaster with wider implications for both Bangladesh and Southeast Asia.
In the wake of the Rohingya crisis, Myanmar has struggled to engage with the West, and it has been subject to widespread international condemnation as the Rohingya remain the target of violence and oppression by the armed forces. It now faces a reinvigorated international liberal order, as the United States seeks to reclaim its role as a human rights defender under President-elect Joe Biden.
Biden's senior foreign policy hands will be veterans of the Obama administration, which in 2016 tacitly endorsed the country's democratic opening by lifting a majority of US sanctions. The Rohingya crisis and Aung San Suu Kyi's handling of it have been seen as a betrayal of Washington's gesture of good faith, and that may inform a stricter, more critical approach to Myanmar under the Biden administration.
If incoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken takes the step of declaring the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya a genocide, Myanmar would likely be hit with a reinstitution of the sanctions lifted in 2016 – a massive blow to an unstable economy post-COVID-19. Blinken has stated that “a Biden administration will work tirelessly to support justice for atrocities committed, as well as peace, security, and equal rights for the Rohingya as citizens of Burma”.
Whether or not the Biden administration declares the Rohingya crisis a genocide, the relationship between the United States and Myanmar will certainly be frostier than it was under Mike Pompeo's tenure as Secretary of State. That is a major issue for Myanmar, which has sought to strengthen relations with the US to counterbalance a potential over-reliance economically on China. With its relationship with Washington strained, Myanmar will lack the leverage to negotiate in its relations with China, particularly on trade and infrastructure which (as evidenced by Beijing's actions in Sri Lanka) could have lasting consequences.
The future of the NLD
The greatest question mark in Myanmar's future is the country's political landscape post-Aung San Suu Kyi. Her personal popularity has carried the NLD since its inception, and it's hard to overstate her broad, singular authority within the party. While she hasn't stated this is her last term in office, she's 75, and it's widely expected that she will step down in 2025. The lack of an heir apparent and the middling popularity of the rest of the NLD raises the question of whether the party can even exist without Aung San Suu Kyi at the helm. Let alone govern with continued majorities.
A break-up of the big-tent NLD would create an immense political vacuum, with splinter parties, the USDP, and the military jockeying for political control. In such a free-for-all, some political opportunists would doubtlessly eschew an ideological platform and instead capitalise on ethno-religious nationalism — a slippery slope in a country with a history of inter-ethnic conflict. Even if the NLD survives Aung San Suu Kyi's departure, or is succeeded by an ideologically similar party, it will be significantly weakened without such a universally popular figure (2020 survey showed that 79 per cent of Myanmar trusted Daw Suu).
The 2025 elections will therefore be a critical stress-test for Myanmar's nascent democracy; its winner-take-all, highly centralised system is workable when a party wins an overwhelming national majority, but much less so when results are more pluralistic.
An uncertain future
On its current course, Myanmar is destined to face heightened internal conflict and wider political divisions, and a more challenging foreign policy environment externally. While these challenges are largely unavoidable, the country's democratic erosion is not; over the next five years, the NLD has the opportunity to change, embrace meaningful democratic reforms, and make good on its promise to form a national unity government. A principled, united movement is Myanmar's best chance for achieving true reform and removing the military asterisk from its democracy.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Evan Brandaw is a freelance writer and foreign policy professional specialising in Southeast Asia and US foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific. A graduate of Occidental College, he has worked at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and the US Senate. Image credit: Baron Reznik/Flickr.