Nudging the Junta toward Democracy

What can the international community and the opposition do to ensure that next year’s election puts Burma on the road to genuine political reform?

Burma’s ruling junta has yet to disclose its plans for next year’s election, but it’s not too early to start asking if there is a chance, however remote, that the generals will allow the vote to be free and fair, and what can be done to make this happen.

So far, the regime has revealed few details about how or even when it will conduct the election. Speculation is rife about possible polling dates, but past experience suggests it will be sometime in the first half of the year. May seems especially likely, since that was the month when both the last election in 1990 and the constitutional referendum in 2008 were held. This is also when most schools are closed, meaning that students—historically regarded by Burma’s authoritarian rulers as troublemakers—will not be gathered in large numbers.

ILLUSTRATION HARN LAY/THE IRRAWADDY

Ultimately, the date, like everything else about the election, will be decided by the junta’s supreme leader, Snr-Gen Than Shwe. Although he has kept everyone guessing about his exact strategy, it is widely assumed that he will approach the election much as he did last year’s referendum on the new Constitution: by rigging it to deliver an outcome favorable to the military. At that time, opponents of the new charter were rounded up or harassed, and votes in favor were cast en masse by regime proxies. The result: a ludicrous approval rate of more than 92 percent for the Constitution.

Of course, manipulating a multiparty election will not be as simple as fixing a referendum. To make matters even more complicated, the regime seems determined not only to vanquish its political nemesis, the National League for Democracy (NLD), once and for all, but also to neutralize ethnic cease-fire groups by incorporating them into the state security apparatus as border guard forces.

To achieve these goals without incurring further international condemnation or igniting a renewed civil war, Than Shwe will need to rely on more than just bully tactics and electoral legerdemain. Indeed, unless he can somehow bring his staunchest critics on board—namely, NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the US government—the election will go down in history as yet another failed attempt to hoodwink the Burmese people and the rest of the world.

More than 20 years have passed since the regime seized power in a bloody coup, and so far nothing has succeeded in forcing the generals to weaken their stranglehold on Burma. Sanctions have failed, as has “constructive engagement.” Mass popular uprisings have been mercilessly crushed, and armed resistance has become increasingly implausible, as the regime has strengthened its own military might to unprecedented levels. The dream of a US-led invasion, once seriously entertained by many Burmese, is now acknowledged by most to be a complete fantasy.

This has left the regime’s opponents with no other option than to try to engage with the generals, albeit on different terms than those of Burma’s neighbors, who have generally been willing to deal with the junta in exchange for access to the country’s natural assets.

Realizing this, the Obama administration announced in September that it would break with past US policy to directly engage with the regime. Unlike Burma’s other “dialogue partners,” however, Washington will expect a different payoff for its outreach: political progress.

When Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, announced the new US policy of direct dialogue with the regime, he noted that Burma’s generals also seemed eager to talk.

“For the first time in memory, the Burmese leadership has shown an interest in engaging with the United States,” he said. As further evidence of the junta’s readiness to get back on a friendlier footing with the US, Campbell revealed in late October that a US delegation was planning to go to Burma to start a new round of talks with the generals and the democratic opposition.

This should come as no surprise. Although the sheer staying power of the regime has amply demonstrated the ineffectiveness of sanctions, Burma’s military rulers are nonetheless desperate to see them lifted.