Myanmar's great leap back

The coup underlines the limits of quasi-democracy

The reassertion of brute military rule in Myanmar, including the possible forcible dissolution of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) after just five years in power, offers an object lesson in the fallibility of its “hybrid” model of governance. The 2008 Constitution, which followed a referendum widely regarded as rigged, embedded the Tatmadaw, or the military, in the structures of power, reserving 25 per cent of the seats and key ministries of defence, internal security, and border affairs, plus freedom from oversight. Ms Suu Kyi’s NLD and other ethnic parties strongly opposed this but agreed to participate in the 2015 general election — the first since 1990, which the NLD had also won — on the assumption that they could effect change from within. But the NLD and Ms Suu Kyi have rapidly discovered the limits of this ambition.

The unexpectedly shocking support that Ms Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, extended to military atrocities against the Rohingyas, and her inability to control military action against ethnic armed groups raised doubts about her independence of action. Equally, her party’s attempts to “demilitarise” the Constitution meant that the relationship with the Tatmadaw remained uneasy, not least because its economic interests had expanded widely during this period of pseudo-democracy. An all-party constitutional review committee suggested over 3,000 amendments, which were passed by Parliament but rejected by the military, and that was a factor precipitating the coup when the NLD returned strongly to power in the 2020 elections. In the absence of robust institutional checks and balances, Ms Suu Kyi and her party were overthrown for the second time in 30 years. Though the elections were certified by the Election Commission, which has since been replaced by a less independent one, allegations of voter fraud offered a thinly disguised excuse for the military to protect its vested interests. The chronic insecurity of the military and the depths of its unpopularity can be seen in the vortex of violence that has erupted since. Over 800 people have been killed — including children — and more than 3,300 detained as anti-coup protests broke out all over the country.

As the military ratchets up the violence and Ms Suu Kyi remains a prisoner, the question is where Myanmar goes from here. The earlier junta relinquished power under the pressure of a waning economy and sanctions from the US. This time, US sanctions are unlikely to have much impact since Myanmar’s major investors are Asian in general and Chinese in particular, through Singapore and Hong Kong. But the prolonged unrest will undoubtedly damage an economy that has been hit, like all others, by the pandemic and has been relatively slow to recover. Analysts expect growth this fiscal year to be a paltry 3 per cent and poverty to grow from 24 per cent in 2019 to 27 per cent. A relatively well resourced national unity government in exile and parallel Parliament have been set up and its representatives received in several capitals (though not Beijing) even as fierce clashes between the military and northern and eastern ethnic groups are guaranteed to keep Myanmar as a failed state of roiling civil war. From Pakistan to Turkey, it remains a cautionary tale of the limitations of quasi-democracy.