Yangon, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar is set to hold national and state elections on Sunday in which Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party will take power.
Take a closer look at the vote here:
Basic
More than 37 million of Myanmar’s 56 million people are eligible to vote. More than 90 parties are fielding candidates for the upper and lower houses of parliament.
The NLD’s victory on the ground in the last election of 2015 came after more than five decades of military or military-directed rule. That vote was seen as largely independent and fair with one major exception – the constitution drafted by the military in 2008 automatically gave the military 25% of the seats in parliament, enough to prevent constitutional changes. Those provisions are still true.
Voting monitoring is a coronavirus and there are restrictions on controlling it, which is likely to reduce voting despite the government’s plans for social distance and other safety measures.
___
Favorite
Suu Kyi’s party is keen to win again, though. With a small majority. Suu Kyi is by far the most popular politician in the country, and the NLD has a strong national network, which is strengthened by holding on to the support of state power.
Nevertheless, the NLD’s lack of vision and its military predecessor have been criticized for adopting some more authoritarian methods, particularly targeting critics by the courts.
___
Competitors
Suu Kyi’s party has lost the support of many ethnic minority parties, which are popular in their border region. In 2001, those parties were allies of the NLD and firmly decided not to compete where a split vote would give victory to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, or USDP.
For decades they have been destroyed by Suu Kyi’s failure to reach an agreement giving ethnic minorities greater political autonomy and this year they will work with her against the NLD. There are about 60 small ethnic parties here.
The main opposition, the USDP, was established as a proxy for the military and is again the NLD’s strongest rival. It is well-funded and streamlined. It is not clear whether voters still see him as tainted by his association with the previous military regime.
___
Issues
Just as the 2015 election was seen as a verdict on military rule, so too, the vote is seen as a referendum on Suu Kyi’s five years in power.
Economic growth has taken place, but it has benefited a small part of the population in one of the poorest countries in the region, and has fallen short of popular expectations.
Suu Kyi’s failure to give them more autonomy not only frustrated ethnic minority groups, but in the western Raghine state, the well-trained and well-equipped Arkan Army – a group claiming to represent the Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group – has reached the top. Becomes the biggest military threat in years.
Parties critical of the government were sharply criticized by the Election Commission for canceling the polls in some areas where they were determined to win seats. The move is estimated to deprive more than 10 million people. Critics accuse Election Commission of conspiring to bid for NLD
The issue that gets the most global attention, the repression of the Muslim Rohingya minority, is not an election issue except for anti-Muslim politicians. A brutal anti-2017 campaign led some 740,000 Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh, but they have long faced systematic discrimination that denies them citizenship and the right to vote.
.
