Myanmar's fragile democracy

The military rolls back a popular mandate

The military coup in Myanmar a little over two months after national elections handed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), a landslide victory remains a cautionary tale of the importance of building robust institutional safeguards for democracy to endure. The military has reasserted its power just six years after the country transitioned to democracy and held elections in 2015, which handed power to a civilian government led by Ms Suu Kyi and the NLD. The military led by commander in chief Min Aung Hlaing, who has assumed control of the government, has claimed election fraud without evidence and despite denials from the country’s electoral commission. It has done so on the basis that the election watchdog had cancelled polls in the insurgency-hit Rakhine state and other conflict-affected areas on the periphery such as the Shan and Kachin states.

The military’s reassertion of power and the detention of Ms Suu Kyi and NLD leaders reflects its uneasiness at the momentum with which democracy has progressed in this country of 54 million people where the electoral turnout was a Covid-defying 70 per cent. Under the 2008 constitution, the military retained considerable influence within the ruling establishment, retaining 25 per cent of the seats in Parliament and requiring that the ministries of home, border affairs, and defence be headed by serving military officers. Despite the military’s constitutionally mandated dominance in government, Ms Suu Kyi’s party secured 346 seats, more than the 322 seats needed to form the government, outperforming its 2015 record even as the military-backed USDP performed poorly.

Predictably, the coup had attracted criticism from western democracies with US President Joe Biden threatening to reassert sanctions. But these moves appear feeble against the oblique response from the dominant power in the region, China. Beijing has described the coup as a “cabinet reshuffle” and blocked a UN Security Council resolution condemning it. This is unsurprising, given China’s overwhelming economic influence in Myanmar’s gas- and mineral-rich economy, the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor project linking the country to the Bay of Bengal being one potent symbol of the close relationship. The international community’s response is likely to be muted, first because global attention is focused on fighting Covid-19 and, second, because of Ms Suu Kyi’s weakened reputation.

Having spent more years in detention than out of it, Ms Suu Kyi had become the symbol of Myanmar’s battle for democracy. But her tacit sanction of the military’s genocide against the Rohingya Muslims once she came to power gave many of her international supporters cause to doubt the depths of her democratic credentials. For India, Myanmar’s coup requires it to resume its customary balancing act between the military and the forces of democracy. The Indian establishment retains a warm relationship with Ms Suu Kyi and continues to send the country humanitarian aid (such as Covid-19 vaccines) but also with the military. General Min Aung Hlaing was given a red-carpet welcome in 2019, soon after he was censured by the US for his role in the Rohingya genocide, not least because the Myanmarese military has played a helpful role in containing insurgent activity in India’s north-east. Since the NLD has resolved to sort out this controversy by peaceful means, wait and watch is the only option for now.