{"id":64368,"date":"2015-11-06T05:17:45","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T11:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=64368"},"modified":"2015-11-06T05:17:45","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T11:17:45","slug":"myanmars-historic-poll-may-be-moment-of-destiny-for-suu-kyi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/11\/06\/myanmars-historic-poll-may-be-moment-of-destiny-for-suu-kyi\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar\u2019s historic poll may be moment of destiny for Suu Kyi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Aung<\/a>
Aung San Suu Kyi (Photo from Wikipedia\/Claude TRUONG-NGOC<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

YANGON, Myanmar \u2013 It\u2019s about returning democracy to a nation held hostage to more than a half-century of military rule. It\u2019s about hope for a better life for millions of desperately poor people. It\u2019s about being fully embraced by the international community. But most of all, Myanmar’s general election on Sunday may prove to be opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s moment of destiny \u2013 a chance to seize the victory the junta stole from her 25 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in my heart that things are going to change for sure,\u201d said lawyer Kyaw Thu Win, sitting in a sea of red party T-shirts and flags at a recent campaign rally that drew tens of thousands of ecstatic Suu Kyi supporters.<\/p>\n

Suu Kyi\u2019s National League for Democracy party and its chief rival, the ruling, military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, held final rallies Friday, the last day of campaigning before a cooling-off period. Most analysts, observers and journalists who have toured the country are certain the NLD will win the elections \u2013 if they are free and credible.<\/p>\n

An NLD-dominated Parliament would be a democratic milestone for a country that was ruled by the military from 1962 to 2011, when \u2013 after intense international pressure \u2013 it handed power to a nominally civilian government led largely by retired generals. The military still retains many powers, but a majority in Parliament would give the NLD the presidency and control over the shape of the government and lawmaking.<\/p>\n

It will also give hope to many of the ethnic minorities who form 40 percent of the country\u2019s 52 million people. Myanmar is home to some of the world\u2019s longest-running insurgencies, fought in regions where ethnic groups are demanding greater autonomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, these elections are important because they are the first real indicator of whether the democratic transition is going to take a big step forward or remain in a quasi-civilian middle ground for years to come,\u201d said Thant Myint-U, a historian and government adviser.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s elections are not without flaws, which raise concerns about their impartiality. The chair of the election commission is an unabashed supporter of President Thein Sein\u2019s USDP. There have been complaints about voting list irregularities and a large number of disenfranchised voters.<\/p>\n

But with 11,000 local and international monitors overseeing 40,000 polling stations, election observers said they are hopeful any attempts at systematic wrongdoing will be spotted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t be everywhere, but we\u2019ll have a good sample,\u201d said Jonathan Stonestreet, who heads a team from the Carter Center, which has overseen more than 100 elections across the globe.<\/p>\n

Free and credible elections, leading to a smooth democratic transition of power, are key to lifting remaining international sanctions, principally by the United States, which will lead to a flood of foreign investment.<\/p>\n

Myanmar remains a desperately poor country. In a teeming, cacophonous slum in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, the election has brought hopes of a brighter future.<\/p>\n

Htay Aung, a 62-year-old house builder, has worked his whole life to lift his family\u2019s standard of living. \u201cWe hope for a government that will develop the country and improve the lives of people like us,\u201d he says, pausing to draw on a long cheroot.<\/p>\n

Suu Kyi and the NLD won the last election they contested, in 1990, but the military refused to honor the results and kept Suu Kyi under house arrest over most of the following two decades.<\/p>\n

Analyst Richard Horsey believes Sunday\u2019s result will stand, however, even if the ruling party loses badly. That\u2019s because the military has changed the constitution to protect much of the power it holds. It is guaranteed 25 percent of legislative seats, enough to block any constitutional amendments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe constitution… already contains the powers and bakes in the red lines of the military,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have the authority they need over their domain of interest. And I think that means that transferring power is much less a risk and concerning to them that it was in 1990.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winning the elections is only the first step for the NLD to take power. The new Parliament will choose the president, and since the military controls a quarter of the 664 seats it has a significant head start. Myanmar\u2019s complicated electoral process requires that Parliament put forward three presidential candidates for a February vote.<\/p>\n

Even if Suu Kyi\u2019s party wins the presidential race, she will not be president. The constitution bars her from the job because her late husband and sons are not Myanmar citizens.<\/p>\n

That does not seem to bother her. She said at a news conference Thursday that she will run the government anyway if her party wins by being \u201cabove the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her stance highlights a divide that has grown between her and some Myanmar politicians and intellectuals, including former allies. She won a Nobel Peace Prize for defying dictators, but is now accused of having own authoritarian style. Yet she appears to have lost little of her massive popularity among voters, especially in urban areas and Myanmar\u2019s central heartland. The mystique she enjoys as daughter of martyred independence leader Aung San, as leader of a doomed 1988 pro-democracy uprising and as a stalwart former political prisoner remains undiminished.<\/p>\n

Suu Kyi is being challenged by some Buddhist ultranationalists who have grown more powerful since the junta\u2019s end and have already made a mark on Sunday\u2019s election. For the first time since independence, the 1.3 million members of the country\u2019s Rohingya Muslim minority have been barred from voting. And neither the NLD nor the USDP is fielding a single Muslim candidate.<\/p>\n

Ultranationalist Buddhist monks are crisscrossing the country saying Suu Kyi and her party are oblivious to the threat Muslims pose to the predominantly Buddhist country’s security, culture and traditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Aung San Suu Kyi takes Thein Sein\u2019s place, it could lead to instability in the country,\u201d said monk Ashin Wirathu, the most infamous member of the politically powerful Ma Ba Tha.<\/p>\n

In the city and the countryside, however, a more commonly heard view is that Suu Kyi\u2019s time has finally come.<\/p>\n

The NLD won just over 80 percent of parliamentary seats in 1990, even though she and her top deputy were under house arrest. A shocked army refused to seat the winning lawmakers, with the excuse that a new constitution first had to be implemented \u2013 a task that ended up taking 18 years to accomplish.<\/p>\n

Suu Kyi was again under house arrest for the next general election in 2010, which the NLD boycotted because it considered election laws unfair. Still, the vote ended the junta era and ultimately installed President Thein Sein, a former general who began instituting political and economic reforms to end Myanmar’s isolation from much of the world and jumpstart its moribund economy.<\/p>\n

Election laws were eased, and in 2012 the NLD agreed to contest a series of by-elections, winning most of the seats at stake. Suu Kyi was elected a member of parliament for a suburb of Yangon.<\/p>\n

Now, three years after sampling partial success, she anticipates a full victory.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press journalists Robin McDowell, Esther Htusan and Vijay Joshi contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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