Aung San Suu Kyi wins big in Myanmar elections, but will she bring peace or restore her reputation abroad?

Last weekend, just hours after the US presidential election for Joe Biden was called, voters in Myanmar began lining up for a chance to decide whether the government of the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, I would return for a period of time. second period.

With 5,643 candidates from 91 parties vying for 1,119 seats at both the state and federal levels, the nation’s nearly 38 million voters were asked to pass judgment on the last five years of the NLD’s rule.

After three days of counting the votes, the ruling party has scored a major victory, probably extending its resounding victories since the 2015 general election.

Under the military authorship constitution, a quarter of the seats in the national legislature are still reserved for military-appointed representatives, who generally vote en bloc. Therefore, the NLD needed to win two-thirds of the elected seats to achieve a ruling majority.

This requirement was designed by the military to be a high, almost impossible threshold for any democratically oriented party in such a diverse and multi-ethnic political system. But it seems the NLD has done it again, with ease.

The NLD appears to have displaced the army-backed Union, Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) from some of its strongholds in rural areas and southern Mandalay. And his dominance in Yangon and much of the country has been greeted with glee among staunch supporters, eager to see further consolidation of the country’s democratic ambitions.

The millions of Suu Kyi supporters will also interpret the NLD’s renewed mandate as a repudiation of the widespread international backlash against the government for its handling of the Rohingya crisis, which caused the displacement of nearly a million people in 2017.

This led to a genocide case against Myanmar being launched at the International Court of Justice and a dramatic fall from grace for Suu Kyi, in particular.

Read more: The extraordinary fall from grace of Aung San Suu Kyi

Conflict is still a big problem

During her first term, Suu Kyi sought to negotiate a new peace agreement at the national level with the various armed ethnic minority groups, but was frustrated by the entrenched complexities of the country’s border politics.

Well-armed militias, some of which derive considerable financial strength from a wide variety of illicit businesses, have proven unwilling to accept their government’s claims on their territories.

In some of these areas, the Electoral Commission canceled voting in the elections, apparently due to ongoing fighting. Northern Rakhine State and also areas in Chin, Shan, Kachin, Kayin and Mon States, and in the Bago region, were affected by these cancellations.

In Rakhine and Chin states, however, elections could be held in the NLD strongholds least affected by the conflict between the army and the army of Rakhine Arakan of ethnic Buddhism, while voting was canceled in areas controlled by ethnic minority parties.

In total, 22 seats in both houses of the national legislature will remain vacant until conflicts are eased, which may not happen anytime soon.

Since the decision to suspend voting in these areas benefited the NLD, it called into question the independence of the Election Commission.

About 1.5 million voters were disenfranchised by the measure. This does not include the Rohingya in Rakhine State and refugee camps in Bangladesh who have historically been denied citizenship and the right to vote.

Human Rights Watch has called the elections “fundamentally flawed,” and many countries have called their support for the result highlighting this disenfranchisement.

Is the military really loosening its grip?

At best, the military will only grudgingly accept election results, especially since their favorite party, the USDP, performed poorly.

The past five years have witnessed generally friendly relations between the NLD and the military, including in light of the army’s brutal “cleansing operations” of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State in 2017.

However, in the run-up to the elections, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Major General Min Aung Hlaing, issued a statement criticizing the Election Commission, arguing that

Weaknesses and deficiencies appear that were never seen in previous elections.

He blamed the NLD for the commission’s performance and, the next day, argued that the government was making “unacceptable mistakes”, hinting that it might not accept the election result.

Recently, a reputable website run by activists investigating the military was blocked and several opposition parties had their political broadcasts censored when they appeared on state television.

In addition to other restrictions on freedom of expression, election cancellations, internet closures, disenfranchisement of ethnic minorities, and campaign restrictions due to COVID-19 have clouded the vote.

Prospects for the new NLD government

While the treatment of the Rohingya, and Suu Kyi’s defense of military crimes against them, is impossible to accept, foreign governments have no choice but to continue to provide support to the newly empowered NLD government.

However, international pressure must continue to resolve the Rohingya crisis and protect freedom of expression.

If the military intervened and regained control of the civilian-led government, this would, in every way, be a major step back for democracy in Myanmar. While we have argued that the chances of a coup seemed relatively low during the NLD’s first term, recent events have shown that the military can always find an excuse to reassert itself at the center of Myanmar politics.

To avoid further turbulence, and with its new mandate, the Myanmar government will need to quickly focus on broad-based economic development and human security. The election result also offers an opportunity to focus on the peaceful resolution of long-standing conflicts in what remains a tragically divided and impoverished society.