Suu Kyi's party goes for broke
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - If Myanmar's military regime goes ahead with its promised general
election this year, some 27.2 million voters will be deprived of the chance to
cast a ballot for the political party that has come to symbolize democratic
hope in that oppressed nation.
This is the scenario taking shape after the National League for Democracy
(NLD), led by pro-democracy icon and party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, decided on
Monday to boycott the general election.
A damning indictment on the Southeast Asian nation's first parliamentary poll
in two decades, the NLD decision was hardly a surprise. It endorsed the
unequivocal message that was delivered
days before by Suu Kyi, through her lawyer Nyan Win, to over 150 central
committee members and party representatives who met in Yangon, the former
capital.
Suu Kyi, who has been placed under house arrest for over 14 of the past 20
years, had said "she will never accept registration [of her party to contest
the poll] under unjust [electoral] laws."
"The NLD's decision not to register the party and contest the elections will be
a big loss for the people," says Win Min, a Burmese national security expert at
Payap University in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. "There are many
people who wanted to vote for the NLD. They will be sad even though they will
support the boycott."
Yet the NLD's position may have been exactly what Myanmar's strongman Senior
General Than Shwe favored, Win Min explained to IPS. "It seems the NLD played
into Than Shwe's hands. He wanted to avoid a repeat of the 1990 election
outcome."
In that last election in Myanmar, also known as Burma, the newly formed NLD
secured 82% of the 485 parliamentary seats up for grabs. But the military
regime, in power since a 1962 coup, refused to recognize the results.
It is little wonder why the five election laws rolled out by the junta this
month were aimed at avoiding a repeat of its 1990 poll defeat, and the NLD's
activism that followed.
The Political Parties Registration Law, for instance, was introduced to keep
Nobel Peace Laureate Suu Kyi out of contention by declaring that "people who
are serving a prison term cannot form a political party" and that "people who
are serving a prison term cannot be a member of a political party”.
Suu Kyi, one of the over 2,200 political prisoners in Myanmar, was convicted of
violating the terms of her house arrest when US national John William Yettaw
swam to her home last year.
By opting for a boycott, the NLD hierarchy has opted to remain loyal to its
popular leader rather than ditching her to meet electoral requirements and
contest the poll.
"Without any objections, all the party leaders reached a consensus not to
register the party and join the election because the junta's election laws are
unjust," Khin Maun Saw, a senior party official who attended the March 29
meeting, was quoted as having told 'The Irrawaddy' magazine run by Burmese
journalists in exile.
Yet it is a high-stakes political gamble, for the NLD may have placed itself in
an awkward position by taking the moral high ground instead of following
pragmatic politics. The NLD ignored the "big picture in Burmese politics and
the important role it has to play in helping to transform the country towards a
democracy," a senior official of a Southeast Asian country told IPS. "Democracy
is a process, not a morality play."
Even Western governments who have been trenchant critics of the junta are not
all in agreement with the NLD's move. "It is a disappointing decision. It
disregards the variety of opposition opinion inside the country," a European
diplomat who regularly visits Myanmar observed in an interview. "The NLD
discredits those who will form parties to contest the election."
Between 11 to 15 political parties are expected to register before the May 7
deadline, a number much lower than the nearly 100 that registered to contest
the 1990 election.
The coming poll may come to haunt the NLD in other ways, too. "This election
will be a referendum on the popularity of the NLD," says Benjamin Zawacki,
Myanmar researcher for the London-based rights lobby Amnesty International.
"The test will be whether people participate and vote or acquiesce to the NLD's
call to boycott the poll."
"It is political brinkmanship on the part of the NLD," Zawacki told IPS.
"Should they succeed and people boycott the poll, it could fundamentally change
the political landscape of Myanmar. But if they fail - if voters ignore the
boycott and vote for other parties - then it could spell the end of the NLD as
a political party."
The risk that the 2010 election may sound the death knell for the NLD has not
been lost on the party hierarchy. "Our party can die, but not our political
movement," was how Nyan Win, Suu Kyi's lawyer and NLD spokesman described the
party's sentiment to The Irrawaddy.
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