Myanmar’s unexpected announcement of a timetable for elections in 2010 could prove meaningless with Aung San Suu Kyi and other top democracy leaders locked away, analysts said on Sunday.
The military announced late on Saturday that it would hold a constitutional referendum in May to set the stage for elections in 2010, in a move that Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) called “surprising.”
If held, the polls would be the first since 1990, when the NLD won a landslide victory – even though Aung San Suu Kyi was already under house arrest. She has been confined to her home in Yangon for 12 of the last 18 years.
Analysts said the regime’s announcement raised more questions than answers, especially about what role pro-democracy forces would be allowed to play in elections in a country ruled by the military since 1962.
Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar at Australia’s Macquarie University in Sydney, said he was sceptical about the elections because so many pro-democracy activists have been arrested. “The opposition movement is the weakest at the moment because so many of them are all locked up,” Turnell said.
The Amnesty International estimates the regime holds at least 1,850 political prisoners, including about 700 arrested during the junta’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests in September 2007.
The protests led by Buddhist monks were the biggest challenge to military rule in nearly 20 years. At least 31 people were killed and 74 went missing when security forces violent broke up the crowds, according to the United Nations.
Apart from Aung San Suu Kyi and senior NLD members, the junta has also arrested top student leaders who rallied against the junta in 1988 in a far larger uprising that resulted in more than 3,000 deaths.
Many leaders of that uprising had been released over the last four years and had returned to political activism, only be thrown back into prison. “With Aung San Suu Kyi and so many democracy leaders under detention, it will be very difficult for opposition groups to organise for elections,” said Aung Naig Oo, a Thailand-based Myanmar analyst.
Turnell said the junta should release Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners to “make elections meaningful.” “Unless they are released, it will be totally unmeaningful,” the academic said. Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar, agreed. “They cannot have elections while so many people are in prison for carrying out peaceful political activities,” Wilson said. “They need to free political prisoners. We have to insist they do.”
Even if Aung San Suu Kyi were released, the constitution the junta proposes to bring to voters in May would bar her from running for president.
Win Min, a Thailand-based Myanmar academic, said the absence of Myanmar’s most prominent opposition leader would undermine the legitimacy of any polls.
“She is a true hero of people, and excluding Aung San Suu Kyi undermines the elections,” Win Min said.