Analyzing USDP In-Fighting & the Power Struggle
for the Future of Myanmar
By
Aung Din; August 6, 2015
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.
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