Myanmar’s historic 2015 elections have fulfilled a promise made to the population of Myanmar 25 years ago to end decades of military rule through a peaceful, democratic transition. The results, predicted by very few inside or outside of Myanmar, produced a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, not only in the central Bamar ethnic areas, but also in nearly all ethnic states. The NLD will control two of the three highest executive branch offices, president and first vice president; have supermajorities in both houses of the legislature; and name the chief minister or highest executive official in at least ten of the 14 states and regions as well as the speakers of state and region parliaments. Ironically the military, not other civilian parties, now constitutes the main check on the NLD’s power, an outcome feared by the military and which they sought to mitigate by a 2008 constitution that reserves three key ministries to the military and provides numerous mechanisms by which the military could attempt to suspend civilian authority. The transition initiated in 2011 has been an elite dominated, top down process dominated by the military and its party instrument, the USDP. Will the NLD need to break with this elite process to try to address the enormous expectations created by its landslide victory? Will it become the most successful democratic transition in Southeast Asia or resort to the authoritarian temptations prevailing in most of its neighbors?
Sponsor: Centre for Southeast Asia Research and Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions
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