The Economist - USA (2021-02-06)

16 BriefingMyanmar’s coup The EconomistFebruary 6th 2021

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are reserved for serving military officers

appointed to them, which gives the army

an effective veto over all constitutional

change. Even as tensions rose over the past

few weeks, many believed a coup unlikely

simply because the constitution already

protects the Tatmadaw’s interests so well.

Ms Suu Kyi’s nld boycotted the first

elections held under this new constitution

in 2010, ushering in five years of rule by

Thein Sein, an ex-general, and his Union

Solidarity and Development Party (usdp), a

proxy for the Tatmadaw. But in 2011, follow-

ing talks with Mr Thein Sein, Ms Suu Kyi

engaged in the process. After success in by-

elections the nldwon a landslide victory

in the general election of 2015.

The army had tried to ensure that, even

if her party won at the polls, Ms Suu Kyi

could not herself wield power. The framers

of its constitution included a novel clause

that bars anyone with foreign relatives

from the presidency; it is in no way a coin-

cidence that Ms Suu Kyi has two British

sons. It was to circumvent this obstacle

that, after the nldtook office in 2016, par-

liament created the new position of state

counsellor.

Best laid plans

The generals were able to take some conso-

lation from the fact that, having achieved

power, Ms Suu Kyi did not use it very well. A

lacklustre performance was to some extent

unavoidable, given the constitutional con-

straints that stopped her from exerting

power over the army and the weakness of

all other governmental institutions. But

the state counsellor added unforced errors.

At first she surrounded herself with minis-

ters whose only credentials were loyalty

and grey hair, and though some of the duf-

fers were later replaced with technocrats

her management wasted their potential;

she brooked no dissent and refused to dele-

gate. The economy was sluggish; the coun-

try’s precariat grew. Though Ms Suu Kyi

continued peace talks with various sepa-

ratist factions begun under Mr Thein Sein,

she alienated many minorities by refusing

to take their grievances seriously or to in-

clude their representatives in government.

General Min Aung Hlaing had particular

reason to hope that this poor record would

be reflected in November’s vote. He was

due to retire from the armed forces this

coming July and appears to have harboured

hopes of becoming president; he has a

hunger for “raw power”, says David Mathie-

son, an analyst based in Thailand. With a

quarter of the seats in parliament occupied

by loyal officers come what may, a reason-

able showing by the usdpwould have pro-

duced a legislature happy to vote him into

office even if the nldwas the biggest party.

It was not to be. Myanmar’s system of

first-past-the-post constituencies gave the

nld83% of the elected seats in parliament;

the usdpgot just 7%. The usdppromptly

made allegations of fraud to the electoral

commission, which administered the poll.

The commission denied them.

There were some problems with the

election, and the government refused to al-

low any voting in some places, citing fears

of violence. The same had been done in

2010 and 2015, but this time the no-vote

zones in the states of Bago, Kachin, Karen,

Mon, Rakhine and Shan were significantly

larger. Nonetheless, independent election

observers, including those from overseas,

agreed that there was no proof of fraud on a

scale sufficient to overturn the nld’s land-

slide victory.

The army, which thought its hand-

crafted constitution would never see it in

the minority, faced the prospect of taking

up permanent residence there. And Gen-

eral Min Aung Hlaing’s personal ambitions

were dashed. He still “needed something to

guarantee his legacy, his liberty and his

family wealth,” says a Western diplomat

based in Yangon. But, denied the presiden-

cy, “He didn’t have a plan b.”

In a conscious or unconscious echo of

what was going on in Washington, dc, the

Tatmadaw took up the usdp’s cry of “terri-

ble fraud”. By January 26th its spokesman

was refusing to rule out the possibility of a

coup. At crisis talks on January 28th the

army demanded that the new session of

parliament, scheduled to start on February

1st, be delayed while a nationwide recount

of the vote took place. The government re-

fused, and over the weekend parliamentar-

ians duly gathered in Naypyidaw to get on

with things—which made it easy for the

armed forces to gather them all up at once.

Forwards to the past

In many ways post-coup Myanmar looks

familiar. The army is again in charge, but

the reasons it had for stepping aside per-

sist. Ms Suu Kyi is again under house ar-

rest, but remains by far the most popular

politician in the country.

Her international standing, admittedly,

is not what it was. In 2017 insurgents from

the Muslim Rohingya minority attacked an

army base in Rakhine. The Tatmadaw, in

concert with Buddhist mobs, responded by

sacking Rohingya villages, killing at least

10,000 and impelling 720,000 to flee to

neighbouring Bangladesh. Many Bamars

cheered the army on.

The generals may have hoped that this

violence would see Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel-

prizewinning human-rights icon, sacrifice

support at home by defending the rights of

Rohingyas. She went the other way, refus-

ing to denounce the army’s “clearance op-

erations”. In 2019 she went to the Interna-

tional Court of Justice (icj) in The Hague to

defend the generals accused of genocide.

Her reputation abroad will never recover;

at home it was burnished. Her perfor-

mance at the icjprobably helped win the

nldtheir massive majority in November.

The army’s best chance of getting out of

the cleft stick into which it has reinserted

itself is to delegitimise the nldand make

itself and its proxies more popular. To fur-

ther the first agenda it argues that its coup

was a defence of democracy in the face of

the nld’s stolen election, and carried out in

a perfectly proper way. The state of emer-

gency was, as the constitution requires, en-

There and back again?

Source:TheEconomist

Myanmar, selected events, 1985-

Aung San Suu Kyifounds National

League for Democracy (NLD)

Name changed from Burma to Myanmar

Mass popular protests brutally put down

by newly formed State Law and Order Council

Overwhelming win for NLD in

free elections; results annulled;

Ms Suu Kyi placed under

house arrest

Myanmar joins

AssociationofSouth-East

AsianNations(ASEAN)

“Saffron revolution” protests, led

bymonks,violentlysuppressed

MsSuuKyireleasedfromhousearrest; NLD boycotts

elections;USDPwinsparliamentary majority

CycloneNargiskills140,000 people

TheinSein becomes president,

ending direct military rule

Government

pledges to adopt a

federalsystem

NLD sweeps

to victory in

general election

Parliament creates state counsellor

position for Ms Suu Kyi

Rohingya

“clearance

operation

Sanctions on senior gener

NLD wins Novemberelection

Army retakes control with coup. MsSuuKyiarrested

85 90 95 00 05 10 15 20 21

Kyireleasedfromho

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rals

election