လူၾကိဳက္နည္းမယ့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ

လူၾကိဳက္နည္းမယ့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ
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ဆရာေအာင္ဒင္ရဲ ့စာအုပ္သစ္။ ျမန္မာ့နိဳင္ငံေရးအေျခအေန သံုးသပ္ခ်က္ႏွင့္ ၂၀၁၅ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲေလ့လာေစာင့္ၾကည့္ေရးဆိုင္ရာ အျမင္သေဘာထားမ်ားတင္ျပထားတဲ့စာအုပ္။ ၾသဂုတ္လ ၃၁ ရက္ေန ့မွာ ေခတ္ျပတိုက္စာေပကေန စတင္ျဖန့္ခ်ီပါမယ္။ေရာင္းေစ်း ၂၀၀၀-က်ပ္။ဆက္သြယ္ရန္ ၀၉ ၇၃၀၃ ၇၇၂၇၊၀၉ ၅၀၇ ၉၆၇၈။

Civil-Military Relations in Myanmar: At a Low Point, but Hope Is Still Alive (CSIS IV)

Civil-Military Relations in Myanmar: At a Low Point, but Hope Is Still Alive

By Aung Din: August 20, 2015 

http://cogitasia.com/civil-military-relations-in-myanmar-at-a-low-point-but-hope-is-still-alive/

The relationship between civilian politicians and the military in Myanmar today is at one of its lowest levels ever. The roots of this mistrust date back to the early period of Myanmar’s independence and the beginning of the civil war.

The military staged a coup and took power in 1962, using the excuse that the country was facing a crisis due to the incompetence of the civilian government. Myanmar’s military was deeply dissatisfied with how the army was managed and divided by various civilian politicians in the period following independence. But 48 years and three successive military regimes proved that the military as the holder of political power was no better than civilian politicians and in some ways worse.

The emergence of a pseudo-civilian regime in 2011, based on the 2008 constitution, would have been a good chance to build positive civil-military relations in Myanmar, if both sides had taken advantage of this opportunity and worked together within the new system for the sake of the country. However, the democratic opposition, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, did not see it that way. She assumed that the military was weak and kept using public and international pressure to force the military to vacate power immediately.

In many cases, such as the communal crisis in Rakhine State, the brutal crackdown at the Letpadaung copper mine, student protests against the national education law, and relations with China, Aung San Suu Kyi has acted like a real politician. But when it comes to the military, she behaves like an activist, using the tactics of organizing mass rallies and naming and shaming the military for taking supreme power without the consent of the people. The military has responded with the same attitude, by treating her in an equally adversarial manner, and expectations for possible positive relations between the two sides has dissipated. Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent decision to support her ally, speaker of the Union Parliament Shwe Mann, who was removed from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) leadership last week through a mid-night emergency meeting of USDP leaders under the presence of security forces, makes the distrust even worse.

Some politicians in the USDP — who were former generals, rose to power with the backing of the military, and owe the military for everything they have achieved — have begun trying to undermine that original base of support. This makes the military distrust civilian politicians, even their former leaders, more and more. It was the reason why Shwe Mann, who would like to be the next president, was ousted from the USDP’s leadership on August 12.

If there is no improvement in civil-military relations in Myanmar soon, any efforts to make the military give up political power and work under a civilian administration will be almost impossible, at least in the next 10 years.

The 2015 elections will bring new government leaders in Myanmar not only at the national level, but also at the state and regional levels. The power balance in these bodies will be changed from being dominated almost exclusively by the USDP to a more level playing field with other parties in many cases. The role of the USDP will be reduced from the dominant party to one of several major parties. The USDP might still be the ruling party, but it may not be able to rule the country without cooperation and power sharing with major opposition parties.

The role of the National League for Democracy (NLD) will also change from a minor opposition party to either the ruling party, a party sharing power, or a major opposition party. In any case, the NLD will become an important political force with significant strength to shape the future of the country. The roles of various ethnic parties will also be enhanced. They will have more representatives in the Union Parliament and state parliaments, more bargaining power in electing leaders of parliament and the president, and some ethnic parties might obtain enough traction to control their respective state parliaments.

The period after the elections will provide a good opportunity to build positive relations between the military and the NLD. The party will have more power at various levels of government, and the military will likely have little choice but to engage with political parties other than the USDP, including the NLD, in making decisions about the country’s affairs.

The first move of the NLD will be critical. If the NLD approaches the military with an attitude of cooperation, that could provide a good start to more positive civil-military relations in the coming years. But so far, Aung San Suu Kyi has indicated that her first move in the new parliament will be challenging the military by submitting a draft bill to amend the constitution, especially Section 436, which outlines more than 75 percent of lawmakers’ votes are needed for amendments, and Section 59(f), which bars her and others whose immediate family members and spouses are foreign citizens from holding the presidency.

According to the constitution, a draft bill to amend the constitution needs to be submitted by 20 percent of the representatives in the legislature. In the current parliament, the NLD does not have enough seats, and therefore Aung San Suu Kyi has had to rely on speaker Shwe Mann to take the lead. But in the new parliament, her party will surely have more than enough seats to be able to table draft amendments alone. The military will oppose such constitutional amendments and will again be cast in a role creating distrust among the people. If Aung San Suu Kyi follows this tactic repeatedly, the military will lose patience and consider taking back power from civilian politicians, which could mean staging another coup.

The 2008 constitution is not a democratic one. Even so, the separation of powers to different players, the setting of term limits, and the holding of periodic election are big changes. It is not democracy, but this is definitely a process of decentralization and provides an opportunity to build trust between military and civilian politicians and test if they can work together within a new system of power.

The 2015 elections offer the opportunity for the country to successfully pass from the first phase of decentralization (2011-2015) to the second (2016-2020), which should be welcomed and encouraged. Hopefully the second phase brings more freedoms and more public participation in politics, as well as more mutual understanding between the rivals for power. If the second phase is better than the first, one can see Myanmar entering a path toward democracy with the third phase of decentralization beginning in 2021.

Mr. Aung Din is a former political prisoner in Burma and currently lives in the United States. He is serves as a consultant for Moemaka Multimedia, based in San Francisco, and as an adviser to the Open Myanmar Initiative (OMI), a nonprofit organization based in Yangon which promotes the right to information and education – an imperative to get every citizen engaged in Myanmar’s transition towards a future in which peace prevails and democracy prospers. See more information about OMI here.

Aung San Suu Kyi & Her Party Face Challenges Despite Opportunities of Myanmar’s Elections (CSIS part III)

Aung San Suu Kyi & Her Party Face Challenges Despite Opportunities of Myanmar’s Elections

By Aung Din: August 13, 2015
http://cogitasia.com/aung-san-suu-kyi-her-party-face-challenges-despite-opportunities-of-myanmars-elections/

Many things look rosy for Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), ahead of landmark elections in Myanmar in November. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), is divided and infighting between President Thein Sein and parliamentary speaker Shwe Mann is distracting the USDP. Aung San Suu Kyi has managed to arouse the hackles of the public against the military through her recent effort to amend the constitution in parliament, which was blocked by the generals.

Meanwhile, Thein Sein has lost popularity and is a constant target of Myanmar’s nascent media. His effort to sign the nationwide ceasefire agreement with ethnic armed groups has not yet been concluded after three years of negotiations. Aung San Suu Kyi’s closet rival and conditional friend, Shwe Mann, has lost the support of the military leadership. His rivalry with Thein Sein and the military came to a head on August 12 when security forces surrounded the USDP headquarters in Naypyidaw and party members loyal to the president voted to oust Shwe Mann as party chief (he remains parliamentary speaker). The cumulative losses of the USDP and the military should be Aung San Suu Kyi’s gains. Her time to rise to power may be only few months away, despite her constitutional inability to stand for the presidency.

Myanmar’s most famous celebrities, actors, musicians, writers, and comedians are all prepared to leverage their creative talents to help Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD campaign. The two nationwide celebrations of the 100th birthday of her father, the late national hero Aung San, and the 68th anniversary of Martyrs’ Day, when her father and his comrades were assassinated, effectively allowed the NLD to campaign well before the official election campaign period begins.

Despite all that, the NLD faces a tough road to the presidency. It is having trouble fielding qualified candidates and faces a severe challenge by an ultra-nationalist group, called Organization for Protection of Nationality and Religion, or MaBaTha in Burmese.

Expectations are high that the NLD will repeat its victory of 1990 and win the most seats in the upcoming elections. Such a victory could send Aung San Suu Kyi to the chairmanship of the lower house of parliament. Although she is not eligible to be president, she is expected to back one of her trusted aides for the position who could form the government if the NLD wins a majority. In this scenario, Aung San Suu Kyi could be even more powerful than the president, having powers to control the legislative body and guide the executive branch.

However, a two-stage competition will determine who will be the next president. After a successful nomination from either the lower house or the upper house of parliament, or the military, 332 votes are needed to be elected president in the final voting by lawmakers, or 67 percent of the total elected seats. If the NLD doesn’t win that number of seats, it would likely lose in the presidential race. If the NLD does not win at least 221 seats in the lower house and 113 seats in the upper house in the general elections, the NLD will also probably lose the chairmanship in the lower or upper house of parliament, or both.

The NLD was born out of the 1988 popular democracy uprising. The problem that the party has consistently faced since its founding has been a shortage of qualified leaders. Aung San Suu Kyi runs the NLD as if it were her private company. As the party’s strength and popular support are solely dependent on Aung San Suu Kyi, if she fails or cannot lead, the party will fail too.

In March 2013, the NLD held its first national conference in Yangon, 25 years after its inception. More than 900 delegates from all over the country came to Yangon, many with the hope that party leaders could be elected democratically. Delegates from each state and region were allowed to elect members to the central committee from among their own delegates. After a 120 member central committee was elected, Aung San Suu Kyi was chosen as the party chair unanimously and uncontested.

At this point, many hoped that members of the central executive committee, the highest level decision making body in the party’s charter, would be elected from the members of the central committee. But to their surprise, Aung San Suu Kyi held a private meeting with the current central executive committee and then announced the list of members of the new central executive committee she had just appointed. They included the current members and a few new names.

The party is now chaired by Aung San Suu Kyi with the help of the appointed central executive committee. There is no vice chair, no general secretary, and there are no elected leaders except Aung San Suu Kyi in the NLD’s decision making body. The NLD is structured much like a private company. Aung San Suu Kyi is CEO; central executive committee members are appointed executives who are loyal and responsible only to the CEO, and party members are minor shareholders who do not have voting rights.

The NLD is expected to try to contest almost all of the 1,171 seats in the election and therefore it has sought to find enough qualified candidates. It released its list of 1,133 candidates on August 1, but has been heavily criticized for leaving off well-known lawmakers and activists, including members of the 88 Generation (Peace and Open Society), and in many cases ignoring the nominations made by local party offices.

Candidates must also pass the Union Election Commission’s scrutiny, which will make its final decision between August 18 and 27. Unfortunately, the NLD lacks enough qualified candidates. Some candidates may not pass the election commission’s scrutiny and some may not get support from local NLD members, let alone win their respective election.

The MaBaTha was founded one year ago by a group of influential Buddhist monks, but the speed of the group’s rise to national prominence is remarkable. Today, its branches have been established throughout the country and its influence over the government and public is widespread. Ultra-nationalism and religious extremism bind its members together with a common belief that they are protecting Buddhism from the danger of other religions.

The MaBaTha believes that Buddhism will be weakened and undermined if the NLD wins in the election and holds power. Its members believe that keeping the USDP in power is the best chance to protect the Burmese nationality and Buddhist religion. They have mounted a campaign, calling for people to vote for USDP, not NLD, candidates.

In addition unity between the NLD and ethnic parties has been broken by the NLD’s decision to try to contest all seats even in ethnic states. By rejecting prominent members of civil society from the party’s candidate list and selecting party candidates by the order of the central executive committee against the will of local branches, unity within the party and with civil society has also been broken. Combining these fissures with the strong campaign against the NLD launched by the MaBaTha, a major NLD victory in the elections is not a sure thing.

Mr. Aung Din is a former political prisoner in Burma and currently lives in the United States. He is serves as a consultant for Moemaka Multimedia, based in San Francisco, and as an adviser to the Open Myanmar Initiative (OMI), a nonprofit organization based in Yangon which promotes the right to information and education – an imperative to get every citizen engaged in Myanmar’s transition towards a future in which peace prevails and democracy prospers. See more information about OMI here.

Rohingya Is More than a Human Rights Issue for Myanmar (CSIS part II)

Rohingya Is More than a Human Rights Issue for Myanmar

By Aung Din, August 7, 2015

http://cogitasia.com/rohingya-is-more-than-a-human-rights-issue-for-myanmar/

The majority of people in Myanmar perceive that the United States and the international community have been biased and one-sided when they approach the situation of the Rohingya, or Bengalis as they are called in Myanmar, in the western state of Rakhine. The United States should not only consider this to be a human rights problem, but should also recognize that it is an immigration and national security problem much like one that the United States also faces at home.

No one can deny that Muslims have been present in Rakhine State since the 17th century or even earlier. Their numbers increased after Myanmar was occupied by Britain, beginning in 1826. They came from Bengal, Chittagong, India, and other areas colonized by the British. Whether they call themselves Rohingya, Bengali, or something else, they are basically immigrants and not an indigenous ethnic group of Myanmar, such as the Karen or Shan.

The Rohingya therefore cannot claim indigenous ethnic rights. Many of them deserve citizenship because they have lived in Myanmar for many generations, but many others could be considered illegal immigrants who crossed from Bangladesh to Myanmar only in recent years.

For the United States to consider the situation of the Rohingya as a human rights problem alone ignores the complexities within the Rohingya community. Some have advocated for the use of violence, while others have demanded to divide Rakhine State into two parts, one of which would join Pakistan. There are other groups that are well-connected with international terrorists and have called for jihad, while others are under the influence of and financed by some fundamentalist Islamic countries.

As a result, the United States should avoid pressuring Myanmar to accept the Muslims in Rakhine state as an indigenous ethnic group and give them citizenship immediately. In Myanmar, neither the government nor the people will bow to such pressure, and changing their status to an indigenous people is not under consideration. Even in the United States, giving amnesty to all illegal immigrants is a thorny issue.

Allowing undocumented people to choose a path to citizenship is also complicated. In Myanmar, most Muslims in Rakhine State do not speak, write, and read the Rakhine or Burmese language, and do not care about the history of the country, let alone considering loyalty to it.

The incompetence and the lack of goodwill among many Myanmar government officials, combined with the lack of cooperation from the Muslim population, have and will continue to make the process of citizenship very difficult. Even for legal immigrants in the United States, those who cannot speak, write, and read English, and who do not know basic U.S. history, are ineligible for citizenship.

So what should the United States do? It should pressure the government of Myanmar to expedite the process of citizenship, prevent further violence, provide necessary assistance for those who are refugees, and allow international organizations and media access to refugee camps in Rakhine State without hindrance. The United States should also equally press these Muslim populations to abide by the laws of Myanmar, avoid the use of violence, respect the traditions of the country, study the Rakhine or Burmese language, learn the history of Myanmar, and be loyal to Myanmar if they want to call the country their home.

Mr. Aung Din is a former political prisoner in Burma and currently living in the United States. He is now serving as Consultant for the Moemaka Multimedia based in San Francisco, and Adviser to the Open Myanmar Initiative (OMI), a nonprofit organization based in Yangon with the vision of promoting the right to information and education – an imperative to get each and every citizen engaged in Myanmar’s transition towards the future where peace prevails and democracy prospers. Please see more information about OMI here.

Analyzing USDP In-Fighting & the Power Struggle for the Future of Myanmar (CSIS part I)

Analyzing USDP In-Fighting & the Power Struggle for the Future of Myanmar

By Aung Din; August 6, 2015

http://cogitasia.com/analyzing-usdp-in-fighting-the-power-struggle-for-the-future-of-myanmar/

Myanmar is about to enter the second phase of political decentralization, which started in 2011 with the transfer of power from the military regime to the pseudo-civilian government, the parliament and the Supreme Court, formed on the basis of the 2008 constitution and the results of the 2010 elections. The upcoming elections, scheduled for November 8, will determine who will lead the country over the next five years together with the powerful military commander-in-chief.

Competition within the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to determine who has the inside track to be the next president has intensified in recent months. Three candidates have emerged: Shwe Mann, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and USDP party chief, President Thein Sein, and Khin Aung Myint, the speaker of the upper house.

Fundamentally, the USDP is the party of the military. However, since Shwe Mann took over as chairman of the USDP and as speaker of the Union Parliament in 2013, relations between the USDP and the military have soured. As USDP members of parliament have tried to move the party away from the shadow of the military, they have initiated some popular actions, such as investigating land confiscation by the government and the military. However, the irony is that much of this land was confiscated by these same USDP parliamentarians when they were high ranking generals in the previous military regime, not by the current generals. Thus some of the moves by the USDP have angered the military and the president’s office.

As recently as two months ago, Shwe Mann was seen as the likely future president of Myanmar. To make his position unassailable, the speaker courted opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi aggressively and appointed her chair of a parliamentary committee although her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) holds only eight percent of the seats. Since Aung San Suu Kyi is ineligible for the presidency according to the constitution, Shwe Mann expected that Aung San Suu Kyi and her party might support him instead.

In his efforts to prove his worth to Aung San Suu Kyi, Shwe Mann alienated some of his core supporters in the USDP and further antagonized the military. He tried to fulfill one of Aung San Suu Kyi’s key demands by orchestrating the parliamentary approval in November 2014 of a proposal calling for the president and commander-in-chief to initiate a six-person summit, including Shwe Mann, Khin Aung Myint, Aung San Suu Kyi and an ethnic representative, Dr. Aye Maung from the Rakhine National Development Party, to talk about amending the constitution. This pressure pushed President Thein Sein and military commander Min Aung Hlaing into a corner.

Shwe Mann also allowed his allies in the USDP to submit two draft bills to amend the constitution in June 2015, after President Thein Sein had asked the parliament to wait to amend the constitution until nationwide peace talks with the armed ethnic groups were completed. At the same time, Min Aung Hlaing requested that the parliament, through members loyal to him, create specific laws to share more powers, more resources, and more revenue with the ethnic states, instead of making amendments in the constitution now.

In the end, both of Shwe Mann’s efforts failed. The six-person summit was realized only once in May 2015, without an outcome, although the leaders agreed to convene again in the future. These meetings have yet to happen. The proposals to amend the constitution failed to overcome the veto power of the military representatives and achieved little, but tensions between Shwe Mann and Thein Sein intensified and military representatives were put in a very uncomfortable situation because they had to vote against the proposed amendments publicly, a move which they recognized would be unpopular.

The fall of Shwe Mann seems inevitable and as the election approaches, people want to know whether President Thein Sein will seek a second term. He has given different answers at different places. Sometimes, he has said he wants to retire due to his poor health. On other occasions, he said he will serve a second term if that it is what the people want. If Thein Sein wants to be the president again, he needs to be nominated by a group of the Electoral College, either elected representatives from the lower house, the upper house, or the military.

As Shwe Mann is trying to put himself forward as the presidential candidate of the USDP, Thein Sein may not have chance to be nominated in either house by the USDP. In that case, he only has one group to rely on, which is the parliamentarians from the military. Even if he contests the election with the USDP, to be nominated for the presidency by the USDP for a second term is not a sure thing. If Thein Sein chooses to contest in the election from another party, the chance of a new party winning many seats in parliament is very thin.

The rising star in Myanmar politics today is Khin Aung Myint, chairman of the upper house, who arguably has the potential to unify the USDP and the military. Two years ago, Khin Aung Myint said that he would not contest in the next election because he wanted to retire and concentrate on religious activities. Now, he has changed his mind and is ready to contest for reelection.

The upper house under Khin Aung Myint’s leadership is much more open, transparent and freer than the lower house under Shwe Mann. Khin Aung Myint invites influential speakers to initiate debates on various subjects with his representatives. He founded a committee of intellectuals to advise him and the upper house on the country’s affairs and law making. He listens to foreign experts and civil society representatives. He allows the members of parliament in the upper house to hold public hearings on draft bills and give civil society organizations and the public an opportunity to express their views.

Khin Aung Myint has tried not to get involved in the disputes between Thein Sein and Shwe Mann, but when the situation has turned ugly, he has stood by the president and the military. He also has established a good relationship with Aung San Suu Kyi, who likes his openness and instructed her supporters, who were trying to produce a movie about her late father General Aung San to get advice and approval from Khin Aung Myint about the draft script they had written.

Khin Aung Myint is also an influential leader in the USDP. That’s why he may be the unifier of the USDP and the military.

Some analysts expect that the USDP might win between 15 and 25 percent of the seats in the two houses in the elections. That may prompt the military to weigh in on the side of the USDP. If the USDP and the military can garner 40 percent of the seats as a coalition and if they can muster 11 percent from some ethnic and allied parties, they might secure the 51 percent threshold to retain the presidency and control of the two houses of parliament. Then the military will have the power to push for the removal of Shwe Mann from the USDP chairmanship and replace him with Khin Aung Myint, who both the USDP and the military trust. This scenario would be the best chance for Khin Aung Myint to snare the presidency, and for the USDP to retain power.

Mr. Aung Din is a former political prisoner in Burma and currently living in the United States. He is now serving as Consultant for the Moemaka Multimedia (www.moemaka.com) based in San Francisco, and Adviser to the Open Myanmar Initiative (OMI), a nonprofit organization based in Yangon with the vision of promoting the right to information and education – an imperative to get each and every citizen engaged in Myanmar’s transition towards the future where peace prevails and democracy prospers. Please see more information about OMI at www.omimyanmar.org.