Looking Ahead to Myanmar’s 2015 General Election

Myanmar’s general elections, expected to be held in the last quarter of this year, will be the first since a quasi-civilian government took over in 2011 following half a century of military rule. But as the country gears up for polls, there is growing uncertainty not only about its outcome, but its reform trajectory more generally.

Despite rampant speculation, Myanmar’s election outcome itself is far from certain. Many have assumed that the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), led by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, will triumph against the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) led by current president Thein Sein. But the recent tinkering of the country’s election rules, combined with the advantages of incumbency, the USDP’s strong local organizational capacity, and the NLD’s institutional weaknesses, means victory is hardly assured. At the very least, it may result in a much narrower victory for the party than in 1990, when it won 80 percent of seats, or in by-elections held in 2012 when it won all but one of the seats it contested.

More broadly, the country’s historic reform process, now in its third year, seems to have stalled, with implications not just for the 2015 elections but the country’s future thereafter. Politically, efforts to reform the constitution have faltered such that even if the NLD does triumph, the symbolically historic victory may end up meaning very little in practice. It is all but assured that Suu Kyi, whose late husband and two children are British citizens, will not be allowed to run for president because of a rule that disqualifies anyone whose spouse or children are foreign nationals from doing so. Because of this rule, some will regard the election as neither free nor fair. Additionally, the failure of constitutional reform also means that the military looks set to maintain its effective veto in parliament beyond 2015. That suggests it will continue to be act as a constraint to major change should the NLD play a role in governing the country regardless of who is at the helm.

Hopes of a breakthrough in peace talks between the central government and ethnic armed groups have also dimmed. Insiders say concluding an elusive nationwide ceasefire agreement, which Thein Sein hopes to do by February 12, will be difficult because of posturing and recalcitrance by groups either unwilling to reward the current government with a major victory before the elections or holding out for a better deal following polls. Without making peace with ethnic minority groups, which make up about 40 percent of Myanmar’s population, bringing political stability to the country will continue to be a major challenge.

The country’s human rights situation, meanwhile, continues to see “backtracking” in several key areas, as the United Nations human rights envoy to the country Yanghee Lee told the General Assembly last year. The government continues to deny basic rights – including citizenship – to an estimated 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims who mostly reside in western Rakhine state, 130,000 of whom languish in squalid camps. Growing Buddhist nationalism has also led to troubling developments, including communal violence and a set of proposed laws now being considered seeking to curb interfaith marriage and limit religious conversion. While the government is more inclined to tolerate rather than to stem this worrying trend in an election year, some fear that this could also lead to an outbreak of communal violence in 2015.

Economically, progress on the surface masks problems that lie beneath. Myanmar’s GDP did grow from an average of 5.4 percent between 2009 to 2011 to 7.8 percent in 2014, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But the IMF warned in its October 2014 report that ambitious economic reforms were being undermined by severe capacity constraints which would only increase in an election year. Just a month earlier, Soe Thane, Myanmar’s coordinating minister for economic development, seemed to say as much when he likened the reform process, which he presides over, to driving along a potholed street. Given continued uncertainty over the reform process, as well as more structural obstacles such as inadequate infrastructure, poor access to financing, and an inadequately educated workforce, most foreign investors are likely to adopt a wait-and-see attitude until after the elections before making bold bets.

The base for Myanmar’s growth has also hardly been broad. Vested interests continue to resist reform and pilfer from the state. For instance, while oil and gas contracts have been inked as foreign investment rises, revenues are often siphoned off rather than coming into public accounts. Sean Turnell, a widely respected Myanmar expert, warned last November of the “Putinization” of the economy – the centralization of economic control in the hands of a few. The Burmese public may not be reaping all the benefits foreign investment, but they continue to take on the risks. The IMF and the Asian Development Bank have both warned that rising foreign investment may contribute to higher inflation, which could increase property and household item prices at the expense of the poor. And while much of the focus has been on industry, reforms in the agricultural sector, which constitutes more than half of the country’s employment, continue to get a short shrift.

Adding to the lingering uncertainty is the fact that it is difficult to ascertain what the people of Myanmar think about this state of affairs and what it means for their future ahead of the elections. A survey by The Asia Foundation published in December 2014, which was the first nationwide survey conducted in Myanmar, found a rather mixed picture in terms of reform prospects. Some were optimistic, citing economic growth as well as improved infrastructure, and others more pessimistic given the government’s failure to create jobs and fight corruption. The survey also found an alarming lack of knowledge about democracy as well as high support for a strong, almost paternalistic style of government. 
This may be expected, given that Myanmar is still a country in transition after decades of military rule and remains one of the poorest countries in Asia. But it also suggests that the only thing certain about Myanmar ahead of elections this year is the uncertainty.