Election Politics Torpedo Myanmar’s Ceasefire

After a series of half-steps, reversals, and false starts toward a national ceasefire agreement, government officials in Myanmar believe a formal truce will be in place ahead of historic general elections scheduled for November 8. But even if President Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government and 16 rebel groups come to terms after a last ditch effort in early October, other armed groups active in ethnic areas excluded from the process mean Myanmar’s 67-year civil war will be ongoing when a new government is installed into power later this year.

Thein Sein has placed top priority on achieving a national ceasefire in his government’s reform drive, an agenda richly financed by European Union donors through the Yangon-based Myanmar Peace Center. Negotiators heralded a breakthrough in August when the leaders of ethnic armed groups finalized the text of an agreement after a year and a half of contentious negotiations. The provisional ceasefire allows for rebel groups to retain their arms, establishes joint monitoring mechanisms and, perhaps most significantly, opens the way for a political dialogue towards a federal solution to the long-running conflict. 

Electoral politics are impacting the process, however. Yangon-based analysts believe Thein Sein desperately needs a signed and sealed ceasefire, even if only partial in scope, to bolster his ruling United Solidarity and Development Party’s (USDP) electoral chances and boost his personal candidacy for a second presidential term. A flagging economy, characterized by a 25 percent drop this year in the kyat that stalled major infrastructure projects, and mounting indications of a banking crisis, has undercut the USDP’s earlier electoral strategy to stump on its technocratic credentials. The military-backed party’s candidates hope instead to campaign, however contrived the effort may be, under a banner of peace and reconciliation.

A possible election outcome in which neither the USDP nor Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) wins an outright majority, ethnic-based political parties could hold the key to forming a coalition government. In such a scenario, Yangon-based analysts say, Thein Sein could make a strong case for continuity to ethnic political party leaders, arguing that a USDP-led government with ethnic minority representation would be the best hope for achieving a final peace agreement. In a sign of Thein Sein’s apparent desperation for a deal, his negotiators only recently acquiesced to ethnic demands for future talks on the long-divisive issue of federalism.

Suu Kyi has aimed to counter that notion while campaigning in ethnic areas. On September 6, in a speech made to a NLD rally in Shan State, Suu Kyi urged armed ethnic group leaders to wait until after the elections to sign any ceasefire agreement. She promised that an elected NLD-led government would convene a “Second Panglong Conference,” a reference to an autonomy agreement reached between her national founder father, Aung San, and ethnic Chin, Kachin and Shan groups in February 1947, which was later nullified by the military. Suu Kyi called on the Karen National Union, the country’s oldest armed ethnic resistance organization, to also back away from the ceasefire at a meeting in late August. Despite recent rocky relations with ethnic groups, particularly among the Kachin, Suu Kyi seems focused on reviving the autonomy deal that led to her father’s assassination.

It is unclear what, if any, influence Suu Kyi’s public calls or backroom promises may have had on the failure to nail down an agreement during a September 9 meeting between Thein Sein and ethnic leaders in Naypyidaw. Portrayed by Thein Sein as a “summit” meeting, ethnic leaders appeared to reverse course from their provisional agreement in August by insisting on more inclusiveness, including allowances for armed groups currently fighting the government to sign on. While Thein Sein proposed a formal signing ceremony on September 29, ethnic negotiators would not commit to a firm date without more concessions for groups currently outside of the peace process.

Without the powerful military’s submission to civilian rule, prospects for a truly nationwide ceasefire will remain remote under either main party. While Thein Sein and his aides have sued for peace, the armed forces have simultaneously ramped up fighting in various ethnic areas, including the Kachin, Karen and Shan States, to levels not witnessed since the war-torn 1980s. News reports noted that while ethnic leaders held talks with Thein Sein, military commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing was in Israel for high-level meetings to discuss military cooperation, visit military industries, and symbolically tour the occupied Gaza Strip. Israel has previously sold arms to Myanmar, including air-to-air missiles and 155 mm cannons, and helped to upgrade its arsenal used to fight ethnic rebels, according to Israeli news reports.

Those mixed signals are consistent with the psychological warfare tactics successive military governments have used to divide and rule armed resistance groups and would likely militate against the actual implementation of any ceasefire. On September 21, Min Aung Hlaing said he was confident that a national ceasefire would soon be signed and that the armed forces would uphold the deal. The week before, his forces launched a new offensive against the Restoration Council of Southern Shan State, one of the 16 groups in talks to sign the ceasefire. Presidential spokesman Ye Htut declined to comment on the hostilities, saying only that if the ceasefire had already been signed there would be no new fighting.