THE MILITARY HAS SUCCESSFULLY TAKEN OVER IN MYANMAR & NOW STANDS TO DOMINATE THE PROCEEDING FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. HERE ARE THE FUTURE IMPLICATIONS.
THE BACKGROUND
As the world welcomed a more liberal American President, the majors in Myanmar were busy planning a government takeover. After Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) swept the general elections, the army took control just before the first parliamentary meeting. Military autocracy is not an alien phenomenon for the people of Myanmar. From 1962 till 2011, democracy was a foreign concept. No elections took place in this place & the army ruled with an Iron Fist. The Saffron Revolution of the late 2000s spelt the end of military rule.
Since then, the military has taken part through their own quasi party called the Union Solidarity and Development Party. However, in the November 2020 elections, the USDP won a paltry 33 seats (out of 440). Such a shambolic performance has been the leading cause of the coup. The Military leaders believed Su Kyi’s populist & majoritarian style of leading the nation would serve as a real threat to the military’s stature & power. Another major reason was a secret Constitutional Amendment which would have reduced the military’s fixed share of parliamentary seats from 25% to 5%.
THE FUTURE
This is not the first time that Myanmar has caught global attention for all the wrong reasons. The planned Rohingya genocide has caused chaos in the Rakhine province as well as in parts of Bangladesh and India. Lakhs of migrants have spilt over in several makeshift refugee camps in Bangladesh. The takeover of the military will now spell more doom for the Muslim Rohingyas as the previous crackdown was initiated and executed by the military.
The geopolitical repercussions of this development pose an interesting paradox. While the new government is authoritarian, India stands to gain as New Delhi as excellent relations with the Tatmadaw (military). When the Western world has shunned them through sanctions, India had continued economic relations with the military regime. On the flipside, Au San Kyi was getting closer to China through the debt-funded OBOR initiative. As for the liberal democracies of the west, their reaction will be a good barometer of how seriously Now would be good for Joe Biden to step up and walk the talk, unlike his erratic predecessor. As for the people of Myanmar, they can expect at least a yearlong sojourn under military rule.