Burma’s 2010 elections reveal ugly truths

Surprisingly, the military junta of Burma has enjoyed being a media celebrity during the build up to the 2010 elections. The junta announced that a potential election would be held at the end of this year, as an attempt to “guide flourishing democracy”. The people of Burma have been sharing its pain with the lack of freedom, down into zero degrees over the past four decades. It would be easy to advertise an election since so many things have gone wrong for the people since 1990. The fundamental question is – when will the military generals hand over the power to a fairly elected government? The logical answer appears as not any time soon.

Most of Burma’s neighboring countries seem to prefer that the outcome of the election brings a new regime to Burma, although the trends are not a great for this either. Both the election and the general-dominated-regime are similar to the twin-ugly sisters, but this election will be the uglier one. Nothing can express the beauty on the political landscape of this election, because, the generals have created a unilateral game. No development is convincing to right the direction toward democracy and peace, although the junta has promised occasionally to reinstall these aspects in Burma. However, the generals are marketing their election at the international arena, in particular at the countless meetings of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Recently, 20 military generals have changed from their military uniform to civilian clothes to contest this election, even though they still squat in power and have declared an election commission, which is composed of ex-generals.

The major problem with this election is the prohibiting of public assembly and the annihilating of freedom of speech. Another utterly ugly fact is that this election is being held while thousands of people have been locked up for being pro-democratic, and millions of ethnic minorities have been slaughtered since the regime came into power. On top of this, almost all of the state’s media outlets, newspapers, radios and televisions, have been assigned as the junta’s spin-doctors for the election. As well as the internal media being under control, international election monitoring teams are officially rejected and visa applications of global journalists are banned. With all this taking place, it is certain that there will be no free and fair election in Burma under the military’s election council, only a hybrid ontology: bulletocracy and helmetocracy.

The numbers of political parties have mushroomed to contest this upcoming election. In the short term, they are spoiled with attention by exiled media and are being encouraging by them, however, in the long term, the political pictures of Burma reflects a typical picture. The people’s excitement to the election is evidently difficult to find out due to the lack of quality media being brought out of Burma. No one running for elections has developed any significant policies yet. Parties’ leaders must develop and promote their social, economic and political policy rather than parroting about rhetoric statements and quasi-democracy models. No political party has claimed their policy. Simultaneously, some new faces who with to contest for power, have appeared by branding themselves as the “third-forced” to get a piece of bulletocracy and helmetocracy. Those chameleons have not brought any new policy either, and are just bowing to the generals will.

On top of this, there is no clear time frame or procedure to hand over the state power after the election. The election contesters are obligated to follow the order and commands from the senior general Than Shwe. No one knows what will happen next, when the election will happen and how the minority parties will line up against the regime. What the generals do sentimentally believe is that they can sell their bulletocracy to the neighboring countries, especially, China, India, Thailand, Singapore and ASEAN. As long as the gas, teak and minerals are still being traded, international legitimacy for the Burmese regime is of little interest to its neighbors. Burmese generals are breaking the record of the rise of an illiberal democracy and are making a new one: the rise of bulletocracy in the Asian Century.

With respect to the election laws and the constitutions of Burma, they were promulgated by the military generals. The latest 2008 constitution was plotted with 110 members of the 440-seat People's Parliament (Pyithu Hluttaw), and 56 members of the 224-seat National Parliament (Amyotha Hluttaw) will be selected by the military generals. Technically, a quarter of parliamentary seats were reserved for unelected military generals. Equally, the constitutions, the election laws, the election commissions have been hegemonized by the military generals. Unsurprisingly, there is zero-space for individual liberty, people participation in the decision making process and the market.

With respect to the economic factors, Burma’s human development index and anti-corruption index are one of the lowest ranks in the world. It has been ranked the second largest narcotic exporter in the world, but GDP had budget deficits for more than five decades. There are no systematic fiscal and monetary policies implemented. Burma has neither a sound international trade and is not attractive to foreign directed investment (FDI). With respect to monetary policy, it has three genres of foreign exchange systems- current/market prices, fixed-regime and quasi-fixed foreign exchange certificates (FEC) since 1990. So, such monetary policy cannot pursue global capital investment and money markets. On top of this, the central bank of Burma prints paper money rather than deploying the inflation-targeting by adjusting official cash flow and exchange rates. Equally, there is zero incentive for middle-class creation, economic growth or exported-driven economic development. Therefore, the remedy of election has zero interests to the global money markets and transnational corporations.

The empirical fact is that the authentic endogenous and exogenous legitimate leader is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The trump card is in her hands. Thousands upon thousands of democracy activists have been selflessly following her leadership in domestic and international arenas. The game is not over yet and her leadership is still overwhelmingly dominated by the new generations of Burma. The struggle between the legitimate democrats and illegitimate bulletocrats will be going over next decades as long as these military thugs hijack the power.

Naing Ko Ko is a freelance political economy analyst and is a former political prisoner.

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