Opinion Myanmar military rulers’ farce of a free and fair election

In their latest gambit, Myanmar’s military rulers have announced they will hold “free and fair” elections, expected to be held later this year. Under the 2008 Constitution, an emergency may be imposed for a year, and thereafter extended for six months twice. The two years are now nearly up. The plan for an election has come weeks before the second anniversary of the February 1, 2021 coup. Though the military can do pretty much what it wants, the show of going by the Constitution is in line with every dictatorship’s yearning to appear lawful while cementing its grip. The coup came after the National League for Democracy’s landslide win in the December 2020 elections. If an NLD victory in the polls is what the junta fears most, there can be no doubt about the results of a “free and fair election” under Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the military president of the junta, or the State Administration Council, the name by which it prefers to be known. The election will be held under the 2008 Constitution, which has written in a large role for the military. The military’s proxy political party fared poorly in the last election, and NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi had hoped that her party’s huge win would help her government rewrite the Constitution. The military could not countenance that thought then, and there is no reason to believe that it has changed in the last two years.

The continuing imprisonment of 77-year-old Suu Kyi, sentenced for a total of 33 years on clearly trumped up charges, is hardly a good start to any talk about a free and fair election. Over 15,000 other political workers are also in prison for opposing military rule. The junta is still leaving nothing to chance. It is reported to be toying with the idea of dropping the first-past-the-post system, which it believes gives the NLD an edge, and replacing it with the proportional representation system, which will give its proxies better prospects.

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The people of Myanmar have been trampled upon brutally, time and again, by the military, their aspirations for freedom crushed. They have been deprived of much of the advances that the world has made in every sphere over the last six decades. In an otherwise vibrant region, it stands out as a tragic exception. As the chair of the G20, India must use its leadership to convey to the junta that it must first release all prisoners before any talk of an election, or it risks turning Myanmar into an Afghanistan of the east.