What will happen in Myanmar after the coup
Facts, analyzes and scenarios on the coup in Myanmar. The in-depth analysis by Francesco Radicioni, correspondent of Radio Radicale from Asia, taken from Affari Internazionali
Only a decade has passed since a transition charged with hopes and contradictions began in Myanmar, but now this fragile experiment of "disciplined democracy" seems to have been shelved by the state of emergency imposed on February 1 by the military.
Monday before dawn – a few hours after the inauguration of the new parliament of Nay Pyi Taw – the army ordered the arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, of President Win Myint, of dozens of other members of the National League for democracy (NLD), but also journalists and critical activists of the Armed Forces.
ACCUSATIONS OF IRREGULARITY IN VOTING
For several hours, the Internet and cell phone networks worked in fits and starts, the shops were crowded with Burmese in search of basic necessities, the banks announced the closure. While the armored vehicles of the Tatmadaw – the Burmese army, ed – were spotted on the streets of the country's main cities, the Armed Forces took control of Yangon airport. Then, in the morning, from the screens of Myawaddy – television close to the military – came the confirmation of what many in Myanmar already suspected: the Tatmadaw had returned to take control of the country, imposing a year of state of emergency and transferring all powers to the head of the Armed Forces, General Min Aung Hlaing.
The reason? According to official press releases, the Armed Forces intervened for "irregularities" during the last elections , which ended with a new triumph in the polls for the National League for Democracy . In November, the political force led by Aung San Suu Kyi had managed to win 396 seats out of 476: an even better result than that obtained in the historic elections of 2015. On the contrary, the party representing the armed forces Union, Solidarity and Development (Usdp ) had come out annihilated and with only 33 seats in the new Burmese Parliament.
Thus, since the day after the vote, the armed forces, the USDP and some parties linked to ethnic minorities have denounced irregularities in the election process. If the Electoral Commission had rejected these accusations, there is no denying the controversy that followed the decision of the NLD government to cancel the vote in the areas where the risk of violence was highest between the Tatmadaw and the paramilitary organizations of the ethnic groups.
More than one million voters were deprived of their vote in Rakhine State , while elections were canceled in large areas of Shan and Kachin States in northern Myanmar. However, the move made on Monday by the Burmese armed forces was not a total surprise. Already last week, the Tatmadaw had stirred the specter of a coup, with General Zaw Min Tun revealing that the army could "take action" if the call for an investigation into fraud was not taken into account. consideration by the government.
BALANCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND ARMY
A few days later, the armored vehicles of the army were seen on the streets of the main cities of Myanmar, an action dismissed as a muscle test to put pressure on the government. According to what the news portal Irrawaddy wrote, on Thursday during an emergency summit between the government and the armed forces, Aung San Suu Kyi would have refused the request to recount the votes under the supervision of the military and the postponement of the establishment of the new parliament.
Then the head of the Armed Forces Min Aung Hlaing assured that the army would respect the Constitution: a move that several observers had interpreted as a cooling of the political crisis in Myanmar. The opposite was true. The military took power by citing article 417 of the Constitution which – according to some interpretations – authorizes the Tatmadaw to declare a state of emergency.
Despite the rhetoric on the transition to democracy, that of Myanmar has remained a hybrid political system in recent years where everyone knew that the balance of power between the NLD government and the army was precarious. To maintain a strong lever on the political and economic life of the country, the military has crystallized their role in the Constitution. The charter wanted in 2008 by the junta in power reserves 25% of the seats in the parliament of Nay Pyi Taw for the armed forces, the military leads some key ministries and the Tatmadaw has ample scope to invoke a state of emergency and suspend the civil government . So why do a coup if you already have so much power?
REASONS AND PERSPECTIVES
While the real motivations behind the coup remain unclear, some analysts warn against resorting to Western political logic to explain recent events in Myanmar. It is no mystery that for decades the political moves of military juntas in Burma have been guided by occultism, numerology and the magical rituals of the yadaya. In the fifty years of military juntas in power, political decisions – from currency reforms to the arrangement of the capital's iconic buildings – have been dictated more by superstitions and advice from astrologers than by rational calculations.
To explain the coup, there are also those who suggest looking at the lust for personal power of General Min Aung Hlaing who in the coming months would be forced to retire, as well as the determination to defend the enormous economic power in the hands of the Tatmadaw. Another theory is that the generals feared being marginalized by politics after the new victory of Aung San Suu Kyi, while the repeated appeals of NLD members to amend the Constitution to reduce the number must be sounded sinister among the ranks of the Armed Forces. Tatmadaw's mortgage on the government.
Not only. According to what Bertil Lintner wrote in Asia Times – among the country's most attentive observers -, to give legitimacy to the coup, the military could now play the card of ethnic parties and smaller political groups penalized by the majority electoral system. "After the 2020 elections – wrote Lintner -, the Usdp and several smaller parties wanted Parliament to discuss the possibility of switching to proportional, but the NLD showed no interest in making changes before the vote". According to speculations circulating in Myanmar at the moment, the military could also propose that the heads of local governments are no longer appointed by the central state, but by the regional assemblies: another move that would find the support of some ethnic minority parties.
An unprecedented alliance of interests in Burma given the ancient rivalry between the army and ethnic parties. However, as we have also seen this week, Myanmar always reserves the ability to surprise.
Article published on affarinternazionali.it
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cosa-succedera-in-myanmar-dopo-il-golpe/ on Sat, 06 Feb 2021 06:11:25 +0000.