[ad_1]
YANGON: An MP (MP), hailing from Aung San Suu Kyi’s “chaotic and autocratic” party, now faces Myanmar’s national heroine in the upcoming elections, claiming the country needs to work with an army accused of genocide, not against him .
Voters are expected to return Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party to power in the Nov. 8 election, only the second since the country emerged from decades of outright military rule, but Thet Thet Khine still awaits. leave your mark.
She has gone through many incarnations, from student activist to medical doctor, then businesswoman to jewelry mogul, before being elected an NLD MP alongside Suu Kyi in 2015.
But he has since fallen out of favor.
Expelled from the NLD last year, she says to speak her mind, the 53-year-old hopes to attract voters to her People’s Pioneer Party (PPP).
“The NLD is no longer the solution for the country,” he tells Agence France-Presse in his Yangon mansion, decorated with neoclassical columns, chandeliers and gold-trimmed furniture.
“The way the party is run is very chaotic and very autocratic,” he says, stating that loyalty is valued over competition and that there is a culture of micromanagement and an overriding fear of upsetting La Dama.
“One person makes all the decisions.”
There is widespread disillusionment with the NLD in many ethnic minority areas, but the party has a loyal fan base in the ruling heart of Bamar.
And, for many, Suu Kyi embodies the NLD.
She leads the government as a state councilor, holds the reins of international relations as foreign minister, and has been at the forefront and center of the country’s fight against the coronavirus.
Thet Thet Khine says that speaking publicly means that she and her family members have faced abuse online.
‘Middle way’?
Thet Thet Khine’s family made their wealth in Myanmar’s prized ruby industry.
As a medical student, he joined the pro-democracy movement that swept the country in 1988 before it was brutally suppressed by military force.
The protests also propelled Suu Kyi to fame, who was “so special to us,” she recalls.
After the repression, he chose business but returned to politics after the country emerged from military rule.
Now head of her own party in a fiercely patriarchal society, she describes collective leadership in her relatively young PPP, where the median age of the candidates is 46.
The party promises more jobs, higher wages and lower taxes, although it gives few details about how it would be financed.
It appears to be targeting a broad demographic, featuring Myanmar’s first openly gay candidate, a Muslim nominee and a hardline Buddhist, known for his Islamophobic stance.
“Few politicians understand the business world, so that’s an advantage for her,” says Yangon-based analyst Khin Zaw Win.
A priority is closing the gap between the civilian government and the military, a strained relationship that is mirrored in that of Suu Kyi and army chief Min Aung Hlaing.
“If the father and mother are fighting … the children don’t know what to do,” explains Thet Thet Khine, adding that the military is “part of the solution” in the state-building process.
Under a constitution he drafted, the armed forces retain immense powers, occupying three key ministries and a quarter of all parliamentary seats, giving them an effective veto on the legislation.
His party, claims Thet Thet Khine, offers a “middle way.”
But half a century of brutal junta rule has left many deeply suspicious of an army that imprisoned thousands for their beliefs, subjugated ethnic minorities and oversaw a sharp economic decline.
“They made a lot of wrong decisions and mismanaged a lot in the past,” he admits, but insists that the new generation of soldiers is “embracing professionalism.”
Rohingya crack down on ‘overreaction’
Allying with the military will mean that “you will lose a certain amount of support,” predicts Khin Zaw Win, who attributes the tactic to pragmatism.
“She needs something to lean on.”
The army is accused of continuing rights abuses in decades-long wars against various armed ethnic groups.
In 2017, Rohingya Muslims reported widespread killings, rapes and burning in military operations that now see the country indicted for genocide in the UN’s highest court, a trial that Thet Thet Khine claims is “unnecessary.”
The military “may have overreacted … but it is not genocide or ethnic cleansing.”
Rohingya ancestry has been evident for centuries in Rakhine, but they are widely viewed as illegal trespassers.
The Rohingya “will never be indigenous,” he says, but acknowledges that those whose families emigrated more than three or four generations ago should have been accepted.
“They must have citizenship and therefore (face) no more discrimination.”
Instead, virtually all of the remaining 600,000 Rohingya in Myanmar will be disenfranchised in this election, as in the last one.
His plight is not a priority for most parties, including the PPP.
With less than a third of the constituencies, Thet Thet Khine says he would be happy to win five percent of the seats, admitting that this is a test for the 2025 elections, when Suu Kyi will turn 80.
Suu Kyi “doesn’t believe in a succession plan, so after her era … the NLD will go bankrupt in commercial terms.”
“But I think he will remain in power until his last day.”
[ad_2]
