by DAVID HUTT
Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi speaks during a joint news conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (not in picture) in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, 22 May 2016 PHOTO/© REUTERS/Nyein Chan Naing/Pool
If asked to draw up a list of today’s democracy icons, seldom would the name Aung San Suu Kyi be excluded. Burma’s long-suffering symbol of democratic hope has won more peace prizes than most can remember, was imprisoned under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 years, bears the personal scars of her country’s oppression at the hands of military criminals, and has served as general secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) since the pro-democracy political party was formed in 1988.
This sacrifice, however, was not in vain. Last November, the NLD clenched victory in Burma’s first true democratic election in decades, putting an end to more than 50 years of military rule – a military junta between 1962 and 2011, followed by a military-backed civilian government. Nevertheless, just five months since the NLD officially took office, iconoclastic chisels are beginning to chip away at Suu Kyi’s previously unquestionable sanctitude.
Despite the NLD’s victory, a constitutional wrangling imposed by the former military rulers meant Suu Kyi could not become president. Yet, by promising to be ‘above the president’ and handpicking her obscure confident and former driver Htin Kyaw to take up the position, she has become the country’s premier in all but name. She has also given herself four out of 21 cabinet posts, including foreign minister, the president’s officer minister, and the uniquely-crafted role of state counsellor, which, according to AFP, gives her ‘vaguely-defined powers to guide parliamentary affairs’.
In Peter Popham’s recent book, The Lady and the Generals, Suu Kyi is described as possessing a ‘ravenous egotism’. The Nikkei Asian Review recently posited that ‘some foreign commentators have even labelled her a “democratic dictator” in the making.’ It can be reasonably assumed that when NLD politicians are frequently prevented from speaking to the media or attending civil society events without the permission of party headquarters – restrictions known as than mani, or ‘iron rules’ – it is Suu Kyi’s permission that is needed. Another assumption, it was her decision to fill the remaining cabinet posts with NLD politicians who, according to one commentator, ‘are all over 60, relatively unknown, with limited management experience and will follow Suu Kyi’s lead unquestionably.’
As David Mathieson, senior researcher on Burma in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, recently told the Diplomat: ‘There’s a culture within the party of being very untransparent and authoritarian… A lot of MPs are under gag orders not talk. They’re really trying to keep party discipline to an undemocratic degree.’
That a pro-democracy party should behave so undemocratically has confounded many. But is this justifiable? In the short term, arguably yes. Suu Kyi and the NLD would, most likely, not dispute the insinuation that they are liberating Burma from a militocracy. And, as with most liberators, if they want to prevent the inherent implication of French philosopher Regis Debray’s thesis – ‘the revolution revolutionizes the counter-revolution’ – and stave off their own Thermidor, then it is justifiable to prolong the struggle until it is safe. For Burma, this might mean curtailing the NLD’s internal democracy until national democracy is secure. (This is no foregone conclusion since the country’s constitution mandates that 25 per cent of parliamentary seats automatically go to the military, which continues to control important ministries, and which has already indicated that it would oppose any further democratic changes.)
Still, if this continues in the years to come, Suu Kyi could find herself in the similar position of earlier political leaders. A rather premature forewarning could be that she wields her ‘iron rule’ over the NLD for far too long, preventing younger generations of leaders from rising through the ranks, and endangering democracy which necessities more than the rule of a pro-democracy party, and one figurehead.
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