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