Burma General Election - November 8, 2015

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Intriguingly the army mused about PR, to dilute the effect of a possible NLD sweep of the FPTP seats (as occurred in the last set of by-elections) but quietly shelved them

The important thing will be the Presidential election, which is via a complicated electoral college involving the army and both Houses of Parliament. It will probably end up like Indonesia (1999 election) if we end up with a President Mann (with significant powers) with little popular mandate. Mann may be a reformer, but he is obviously not exactly trusted by Kyi's people.

Some of the key issues will be:

- the monstrosity of a constitution. Fwiw passed in such a landslide it received more votes than there are in fact voters (always a good sign!)

- whether or not the election is fair. We've seen some reports that the electoral roll may be subject to some tampering, although the by-elections that swept Kyi into parliament were judges as fair.

- the Rohingya people, who have been targeted by various populist measures by the government. The ongoing saga of the Rohingya's puts absolutely nobody in a good light - the government, the opposition and Myanmar's neighbours have all waffled.

- public services. A 2000 survey (for WHO I think) rated Myanmar's healthcare system the worst in the entire world, of the 190 countries surveyed. The "civilian" government has managed to roll back some of the worst of sanctions, but Western nations and capital are still not flowing in as of yet.

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Well the important thing, as in "the thing that will probably be the elephant in the room".

We should really invent some sort of scale for how fake an election is IMO. The by-elections last time have convinced me it won't be, say, Nigeria 2007 bad; more like Romania 2014 shenanigans by the incumbents.

The thing is bread and butter stuff will only come with better international support and investment; which will almost certainly depend on political reforms (or sucking up to China, I guess).

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Weren't Beijing furious at the Burmese government a while back because they blocked some megadam the Chinese were planning?

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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/leader-axed-myanmar-ruling-party-offices-raided-150813042838592.html

Ominous signs, as Speaker and likely president (and most NLD-friendly USDP figure) Shwe Mann and his allies are stripped from power in power grab emanating from Sein's people.

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Bump, as the junta have decided not to delay the election after sending out signals they were indeed going to be postponed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/myanmar-election-could-be-postponed-due-to-flooding-fears

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The Grauniad profiles anti-Islamic sentiment:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/03/no-vote-no-candidates-myanmars-muslims-barred-from-their-own-election

Ominous stuff, but nothing new.

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A huge suite of USDP bigwigs ha been kicked out.

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The far-right Buddhist nationalists have done terribly so far. Maybe it is a sign that Ashin Wirathu and his followers (who should be droned fwiw) are little more than an angry and loathesome minority?

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Well he did call her useless, so perhaps his influence isn't that large. Beyond a small and possibly violent group, of course. It's worth noting that various other far-right outfits failed to make any impact at all, which is always a good thing.

Also a bit of classic politicalspeak from ASSK here:

Aung San Suu Kyi: Now, it's interesting because the outside world criticizes me because I have not condemned the Buddhists. And inside the country, I have been condemned because I won't condemn the Muslims. Because I base this on the simple fact that what we're trying to build up is harmony and national reconciliation.

Bill Whitaker: Hearing you talk right now, I hear the politician.

Aung San Suu Kyi: I've always been a politician.

Bill Whitaker: How does any politician pull this country together?

Aung San Suu Kyi: The answer is very simple and very difficult. Trust. We have to build up trust between all our different ethnic nationalities.

(Seriously though Burnese nationalism is terrifying and makes the BJP look like kittens in comparison)