Aung San Suu Kyi's party has won the elections in Myanmar, which this year were marked by the persecution of opposition figures and the exclusion of Rohingya Muslims from voting.
While the eyes of the world were fixed on the electoral drama unfolding in the United States, the citizens of Myanmar (with some notable exceptions) went to the polls on Sunday 8 November to vote in the general elections. The elections were won by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (Nld), which secured a large majority, as had happened five years ago in the country's first democratic elections in over half a century.
The Nld claimed a landslide victory days before a definitive result emerged. The two chambers of Parliament comprise a total of 476 seats, and the party has so far won 346 of the 412 seats for which results are confirmed. The Nld could be on course to secure an even stronger majority than the 390 seats it won in 2015. Before the elections, many believed that the ruling party's success would be held back by the emergence of new political forces and by greater support for ethnic minority parties in regions where dissatisfaction with the central government runs high. Initial results showed some gains for ethnic parties in Kayah, Mon and Shan states, while the main opposition party, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, has so far won 24 seats.
In recent months, Myanmar has seen a sharp rise in coronavirus cases: the majority of the country's 60,000 confirmed cases were recorded after August. The elections also took place against the backdrop of the ongoing ethnic conflict: the Tatmadaw (Myanmar's army) remains locked in fighting with the Arakan Army in Rakhine and Chin states. Earlier this year, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights launched an investigation into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, expressing serious concern over the frequency with which the Tatmadaw targets the civilian population.
In 2011, the general perception of Myanmar gave hope for a transition to democracy after decades of military rule. In 2015, the country held its first democratic elections since the mid-twentieth century, and the news was met with optimism around the world. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi became de facto head of state, and many believed this would herald an era of liberal reforms. The past five years, however, have told a different story.
The country's constitution, drafted by the military regime, allocates a quarter of parliamentary seats to the army, thereby granting it the power to block constitutional reforms. The army's strong influence over Myanmar's politics is further underlined by the persecution of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group living in Rakhine state who have been continuously denied citizenship and are considered one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. In 2017 alone, 700,000 Rohingya people were forced to flee their homes, the majority escaping to neighbouring Bangladesh, where they now live as refugees. The United Nations described the military crackdown that caused this mass exodus as having "genocidal intent", and reports of mass rape, torture and summary executions against the Rohingya led the International Court of Justice to open an investigation into whether Myanmar's actions constitute a violation of the Genocide Convention.
Aung San Suu Kyi has refused to acknowledge the crimes perpetrated against the Rohingya, repeatedly denying the abuses and going so far as to avoid referring to the ethnic minority by name. Members of the Rohingya community who remain in Myanmar were denied the right to vote in the recent elections because they are not recognised as citizens of the country. Most politicians representing this group were also barred from standing in the elections.
While Suu Kyi's silence on the matter might be seen as a strategy to avoid antagonising the military or jeopardising the democratic processes that have been under way in Myanmar over the past decade, many critics point out that it is unforgivable to ignore the abuses and suffering inflicted on this and other ethnic minorities in the country. All the more so given that the de facto leader's actions — or rather, her lack of them — risk having increased her standing among the ethnic Bamar Buddhist majority, which makes up a substantial portion of the electorate.
The NGO Human Rights Watch described the recent elections as "fundamentally flawed", citing the disenfranchisement of the Rohingya, the unequal access of different parties to state media, and the arrest and persecution of government critics in the run-up to the vote. Many anti-government websites were blocked, and people who called for a boycott of the vote were threatened with arrest. On election day, polling stations across the whole of Rakhine state were closed, denying more than a million people the opportunity to vote and paving the way for an Nld victory in a state where it is deeply unpopular.
Taken as a whole, Myanmar's 2020 elections demonstrated that the country is still far from achieving the democratic goals many had hoped for. While a significant portion of voters once again chose Aung San Suu Kyi as their best hope for the future, the sense of optimism that accompanied the 2015 elections — above all among international observers — has all but faded.
Translated by Elettra Tsikoudis
