The failure of the peace process with armed ethnic groups. The escalating internal conflict in Rakhine state. Other burning issues such as the dispute between supporters of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) and ethnic communities over building monuments of General Aung San, father of Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
These were polarizing issues that had been expected to weigh heavily on the outcome of the recent election in Myanmar. They also stoked doubts that the NLD still had the full and unwavering support of those that voted overwhelmingly for it in the 2015 election – the Southeast Asian nation’s first since its transition to civilian government and the end of military rule in 2011.
Myanmar’s first elected civilian government in more than five decades clinched a landslide victory five years ago while raising hopes for political reform and an end to ethnic divide and civil unrest that had wracked the country for decades.
Five years on, such hopes had turned to gloom in the months and weeks leading up to the Nov. 8 election in Myanmar.
“Ethnic parties had been predicted to get more support from voters in ethnic communities who voted for the NLD in previous elections, a considerable number of ethnic voters are believed to have become alienated from the NLD since 2015. So some percentage of the votes the NLD won last time is likely to go to those ethnic parties,” The Irrawady predicted.
But COVID-19 restrictions, the continuing popularity of the NLD, and the surprising high voter turnout undergirded the party’s massive victory in this year’s electoral exercise, observers said. The NLD secured 396 out of 498 seats in parliament.
A Myanmar voter proudly shows his little finger marked with indelible ink after casting his vote.
First-time voters, aged 18 to 22, had been expected to turn up in large numbers and vote for emerging political parties, composed of young and educated candidates returning (some as exiles) from abroad, raising expectations that these parties would perform well at the polls and help turn the tide against the NLD. As it turned out, 4.8 million first-time voters cast their ballots on election day.
The Union Election Commission (UEC) said there was more than 70 percent voter turnout.
The NLD won not only in urban sites but also in rural areas making up ethnic regions, such as Kayin and Chin States, as well as some constituencies in Rakhine and Kachin States.
Voter enthusiasm
The voters’ eagerness to cast their ballots was readily manifest at the polling stations. In the early morning of Nov. 8, voters in Yangon, for instance, made a beeline to the voting booth, reported Myanmar Times.
Kaung Ko Ko, 18, realized every vote mattered after overcoming his initial reluctance to vote. “I was not very much interested in the election. I was not sure who to vote for,” he said. But his strong inclination toward community development spelled the difference in his eventual decision.
“When I thought carefully before voting, community development came into my mind. There were bad roads in my area, and (these were) bad for commuting and transportation. We need good roads. So I voted for candidates who could build good roads for our community,” he said.
A survey by Internews showed that first-time voters were more interested in healthcare, education, and other basic services – including vital infrastructure such as schools, roads, and bridges – than in politics and the peace process.
Yet there’s no gainsaying the extreme importance of the peace efforts in conflict-torn Myanmar.
The world kept a close watch on these measures during the NLD’s initial first five-year term. But it appeared these did not figure high on the voters’ agenda.
Despite the existence of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement – which “represents the most ambitious attempt to date to reach a comprehensive peace agreement, yet, since its signing in 2015,” said The Asia Foundation, “levels of violence in some communities have been higher than ever before, and formal peace negotiations have excluded key actors in Myanmar’s ongoing conflicts in the northeast and west.
COVID-19 also key
Amid the NLD’s decisive advantage – its popularity – the pandemic prevented political parties and their candidates from campaigning.
Naw Ohn Hla, who ran under the United Nationalities Democratic Party, one of the newly emergent parties in Myanmar, said she couldn’t travel to see her supporters in some areas due to pandemic-related restrictions imposed by government authorities.
“I couldn’t visit some towns on the outskirt of Yangon. Some of my supporters invited me, but I couldn’t make it. Authorities also told me that I couldn’t join my supporters in election campaigns,” she said.
Seng Nu Pan, an ethnic Kachin candidate from Kachin State People’s Party, a coalition of four ethnic parties, said she also encountered difficulties when she tried to organize campaigns.
“We were allowed to meet only 10,000 people a month. Actually, we should have been allowed to meet more than 10,000 supporters a month. We couldn’t have organized campaigns in refugee camps as they were closed due to COVID-19 restrictions,” she said.
That the campaign period in Myanmar ran only for two months severely limited the number of people candidates could reach while on the campaign trail.
The government only allowed 50 people in every public gathering due to COVID-19. But in reality, people did not follow this rule. On election day, hundreds of NLD supporters gathered outside NLD headquarters in Yangon to celebrate the victory.
“But local authorities encouraged refugees to vote for the government party [NLD] as the government supports the refugees. The NLD supporters also discredited our party, saying that we will cooperate with armed groups if we win election,” Seng Nu Pan said. These refugees were ethnic Kachin people from northern Myanmar.
The cancellation of voting in some townships, such as in the conflict-ridden Rakhine state in western Myanmar, also had an impact on the campaign waged by ethnic candidates.
“By cancelling elections, [it] is like killing our ethnic candidates politically,” said Soe Thein, a Rakhine candidate from Arakan League for Democracy, considered one of Myanmar’s strongest political parties, in Ann township.
Interviews with civil society representatives and media professionals indicate that the UEC lacked transparency behind its decision to “cancel voting in 15 townships and parts of 42 others without meaningful consultation with political parties, candidates, or local organizations,” a report from Human Rights Watch said.
Election monitoring bodies also bemoaned the perceived weakness of the UEC, citing among others confusion over voting procedures. Despite complaints from ethnic political parties about the election process and its outcome, such bodies including the People’s Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE), a Yangon-based election monitoring organization, still found the election results generally acceptable.
Popularity, above all
“Name recognition was very important during the election period. I think the NLD popularity was still a key factor,” said Sai Ye Kyaw Swar Myint, executive director of PACE. He cited a survey by PACE that showed only a few parties, apart from the NLD, were widely known across the country. These were USDP, Shan National League for Democracy, and Arakan National Party.
Other parties did not get much public exposure, he said, adding that they had little opportunity “to introduce their parties to the public,” he added, citing the severe limitations posed by COVID-19.
Residents gather at a public event in Mandalay on December 10, 2019 in support of Aung San Suu Kyi. Public support for the erstwhile democracy icon and Nobel laureate remains strong.
Digital platforms were also an important factor in the NLD’s ability to organize election campaigns, analysts noted. While other political parties also turned to social media to campaign, they were not as digitally savvy as the NLD. Internet accessibility in remote areas also hampered their ability to reach more voters.
During the campaign, NLD chairperson Aung San Suu Kyi used her personal Facebook account, where she has 2.7 million followers, to reach a wider audience. She posted interviews with her party’s outstanding leaders and members, spoke of their sacrifices under the military junta, and made important announcements such as those relating to COVID-19.
Facebook has an estimated 20 million users in Myanmar.
Long before the latest election and before Aung San Suu Kyi had turned to social media to campaign, she along with the rest of her party had gained huge support for her defense of Myanmar against accusations of Rohingya genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
While international rights groups like the Human Rights Watch appealed to the NLD government to “take all measures within its power” to protect Rohingya Muslims from genocide,” Aung San Suu Kyi and her party gained more support back home, demonstrating confidence in their leaders’ ability to stand against international pressure and sanctions.
Reinforcing the NLD’s popularity was the people’s unchanging view about the main opposition party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). The USDP is still widely seen as a proxy of the military junta – which the Burmese people will perhaps never support owing to its decades-long despicable human rights record.
Many peoples of Burma “suffered long and hard under decades of military misrule,” said a report by Physicians for Human Rights, a US-based human rights organization noted.
The outcome of the latest election conveyed a clear message to the world that the NLD’s popularity is rooted in Burmese society despite the ruling party’s approach to raging issues, which has confounded some ethnic communities and the international community at large. ●
Saw Yan Naing has written for Bangkok Post, The Irrawaddy, Asia Times Online, Aljazeera English, BBC Burmese, New Mandala, the Global Investigative Journalism Network, among other publications. He is currently the Technical Lead and Media Trainer at Internews in Myanmar.
