The ballot held in Myanmar last November brought the first fair and peaceful transition of power seen by the country since the military seized power in 1962. Wracked by numerous insurgencies waged by separatists, social problems resulting from the large domestic drug trade, and anti-Muslim pogroms in the west staged by ultranationalist Buddhist monks, the victory of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) is one of the few positive developments Myanmar has seen in recent decades.
The previous three elections held in Myanmar since the NLD’s founding, in 1990, 2010 and 2012, saw it either excluded from participation or its victories reversed by the military, leaving many in Myanmar and the international community with little hope of seeing a clear and uninterrupted transfer of power in the country.
This time, the NLD won an overwhelming victory, ending the pro-military Union for Solidarity and Development Party’s (USDP) domination of the country. It was the culmination of efforts over half a century to return to civilian government. The NLD secured an absolute majority in the landslide elections and gained enough seats in the upper and lower houses of parliament to overcome the mandatory 25 percent guaranteed to the army, allowing them to install NLD member and Suu Kyi confidant Htin Kyaw as the new president on March 30. (Suu Kyi was barred from holding office herself due to a constitutional clause restricting anyone married to a foreigner or having foreign children assuming the presidency, a policy created by the army and believed by many to specifically target her because of her marriage to the late David Aris and their two sons, all three being British citizens.) (Courtesy of The Diplomat)
No comments:
Post a Comment