
An NLD supporter at a rally in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
The 2015 elections and consequences for Myanmar’s ethnic parties.
Myanmar’s election results have been cause for much hope and celebration as the political map has been decisively redrawn and an exciting new chapter opens in the country’s history.
But the National League for Democracy landslide, described as ‘a red wave’, has also been referred to as ‘a tsunami’, reshaping the political landscape and all but wiping many ethnic political parties from the map.
As the dust settles on the final count, it’s worth taking stock of the new terrain; one where ethnic party political representation is much depleted despite the country’s ethnic and religious diversity.
Sea change: ethnic parties then and now
Ethnic party political engagement has been steadily climbing since 1990, when roughly half of the 99 parties that contested those flawed elections were ethnic, including 18 of the 27 which went on to win seats.
In 2010, when the NLD chose to boycott elections, ethnic parties emerged as the first legitimate opposition to the ruling military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. Of the 37 parties that contested the elections, 23 were ethnic. Ideally placed to represent communities from which they emerged, they received ready and popular support. Sixteen of the 21 parties that won seats were ethnic-based, together claiming 180 seats across state and union assemblies.
For the first time in over four decades many ethnic nationalities had a formal political voice. Despite being dwarfed by USDP gains and Tatmadaw allocations, they offered diverse representation and vibrant opposition across the country’s legislature as they started to shape their own political visions within a federal Union of Myanmar.
Today, many of these nascent political visions have seemingly halted in their tracks. Whilst 18 of the 59 ethnic political parties that contested the 8 November elections did win seats, they gained just 139 altogether – or 12 per cent of elected seats, most of which are in the hands of two parties.
The Arakan National Party claimed 45 of the 139 seats won by ethnic parties, and came close to gaining majority control of the Rakhine State hluttaw. It appealed strongly to the majority ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in a region where ethnic politics is sharply informed by ongoing religious tensions. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, in the north of the country, gained 40 seats, finding the kind of form it did back in 1990. Both these parties are hardened campaigners, well organised and resourced.
In some cases ethnic party representation has been almost eviscerated. Of nearly 300 Karen candidates and six Karen parties just one candidate from the Karen Peoples Party was elected in Thandaunggyi to the Karen State hluttaw. Party prospects for some minority ethnic groups elsewhere, such as the Lhaovo and Shan-ni, were strangled at birth.
Influential ethnic political alliances that have emerged over the last five years such as the United Nationalities Brotherhood, which has been particularly outspoken on constitutional reform and directly involved in the peace process, now have a much-reduced parliamentary profile.
An elite Bamar-led party is left dominating Myanmar’s multi-ethnic polity; but this time with a national mandate to do so.
The 2015 election: the red wave and other currents
National interests have doubtless largely trumped ethnic ties, particularly in an election conditioned by big party politics. The prospect of the USDP’s transformational reform agenda and the potential fulfilment of the NLD’s historic struggle has largely framed the choice at the ballot box. Ethnic parties have been incapable of appealing to voters in anything like these terms.
Nor have they been able to mobilise on anything approaching the same scale. The 60-day campaign window set by the Union Election Commission posed particular challenges to smaller ethnic parties, with limited resources, often campaigning in remote regions. Many of the ethnic parties I spoke to during the campaign window had little or no funding; some did not have the most basic administrative support, let alone campaign management.
At the same time, the NLD’s decision to deploy ethnic candidates in most ethnic areas has done much to usurp the ethnic political position. The presence of prominent and respected members of ethnic communities under the NLD banner appears to have further persuaded ethnic communities that their investment in such a vote no longer calls into question their ethnic allegiances.
Such is the confidence in the NLD’s potential to safeguard ethnic interests that 21 of the 29 new Ethnic Affairs Ministers, elected to represent ethnic minority populations across states and regions, are drawn from the party’s ranks.
However, it remains unclear to what extent the NLD can realistically represent and respond to the huge diversity of ethnic interests and aspirations across the country. Many fear that ethnic voices within the party will be easily ignored, its centralised style of decision-making making this only too likely.
Furthermore, the leadership’s refusal to be drawn into debates on ethnic conflict and religious violence in parts of the country raises further concerns that such issues affecting ethnic communities will not be prioritised by the NLD.
Adrift but afloat: ethnic parties in the future
As many ethnic politicians prepare to leave their posts and return to their communities and a new political order asserts itself without many of them, it is important to remember the definite contribution they have made to the country’s political development, democratic transition and peace process over the past five years.
They have worked hard to safeguard the cultural integrity of their people. In many ways, they have acted as a necessary bulwark against Burmanisation, particularly for ethnic minority populations. At the same time, the many smaller parties, which have now largely disappeared, worked to represent smaller or isolated ethnic groups in danger of being marginalised by larger ones.
The work of ethnic parties and politicians in state hluttaws has done much to influence policy-making and amendment. They have, for example, worked hard to promote the use of ethnic languages in education and represent local needs in natural resource management. The contribution such efforts have made to wider processes of decentralisation is of still more value.
Ethnic parties have played a particularly important role in promoting peace and equality especially for more remote and impoverished parts of the country. Many ethnic parties and well-known local politicians have played an active role in supporting the national peace process, representing the needs of conflict-affected communities, working closely with other civil society organisations on peace-building initiatives and at times even mediating between armed groups and the government.
Despite existing on the margins now, many of Myanmar’s ethnic political parties still have a crucial role to play in shaping its emerging political culture. Their proximity to the country’s many ethnic communities and the support they enjoy among them cannot be ignored. Their experience in representing ethnic rights and interests will be invaluable to the success of wider peace and reform processes in many parts of the country.
Beneath the red wave, the currents of Myanmar’s ethnic politics are likely to shift and change over the coming years. The tsunami that removed or reduced many ethnic political parties may now present a valuable opportunity to reflect on differences and consolidate interests.
It is also an opportunity to develop the capacity of this essential third pillar in the country’s political matrix so it can continue to play a decisive role in the future.
Richard Dolan is a DPhil Candidate at the Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford currently carrying out fieldwork in southeast Myanmar.
This article forms part of New Mandala’s ‘Myanmar and the vote‘ series.
Almost having to wish for the anomalous state of affairs that the 2010 polls produced!
The trouble with ethnic parties is they don’t have one party representing each group like the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the UK, not to mention the armed resistance. Why, because in the unique diversity of Burma there are minorities within minorities to start with, microcosms if you like of their position vis-├а-vis the Bamar within the union as well as a mixed population including a good number of Bamar, Indian, Chinese, and mixed race in each ‘enclave’ as Adam Burke pointed out in his excellent piece here in NM.
At this juncture it can only be right that national interests… largely trumped ethnic ties. So was the NLD’s decision to deploy ethnic candidates in most ethnic areas as was the decision to contest by prominent and respected members of ethnic communities under the NLD banner.
You could say the NLD served as a broad church here like its historic predecessor the AFPFL in the fight for independence. ASSK herself had said this was the second struggle for independence. A second Panglong conference which she dropped like a hot potato for obvious reasons (hotter at the time than perhaps the later Rohingya issue) is therefore very likely back on the agenda.
If the fear exists that ethnic voices within the party will be easily ignored it pales in comparison with the token presence in the previous and incumbent administrations and legislatures such as the current Shan VP Sai Mauk Kham. Fear of a recidivist regime also underlies the leadership’s refusal to be drawn into debates on ethnic conflict and religious violence until it diminishes as the commitment to power transfer begins to show some tangible results.
Needless to say Myanmar’s ethnic political parties still have a crucial role to play in shaping its emerging political culture, not least those armed groups being strung along by the regime’s ‘peace process’ and those deemed beyond the pale.
The NLD has to be at worst the lesser of two evils and at best the real deal for an enduring peace we all so badly desire, and not a moment too soon.
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Thanks for an interesting piece. I’m not sure I agree entirely with your implication that ethnic people no long have a voice as a result of the weak showing of ethnic parties. Indeed, to think of it another way – the NLD is now the largest ethnic party in the country! This is true based both on the number of non-Bamar folks elected in constituencies around the country and the fact that many voters clearly see it as a vehicle for minority voices as much as national transformation. It would be impossible for the NLD not to be changed as a result of the influx of a generation of ethnic representatives elected under it’s banner and rearing to support a more perfect union for their ethnic constituencies. Certainly, 12 of 15 members of the NLD Central Executive Committee are currently Bamar – an imbalance which surely isn’t sustainable. But I would be very surprised if we don’t start to see some very strong ethnic sub-committees etc emerge within the NLD at NPD and state level that could serve many of the same functions of pushing for ethnic language instructions etc that ethnic parties have since 2010.
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ASSK couldn’t have been more explicit than the following statement.
“Our party has won an overwhelming majority of the seats but we won’t take them all,” Suu Kyi said, referring to cabinet seats in an interview with Radio Free Asia’s Myanmar language service broadcast on Thursday.
“We will include ethnic representatives who are not NLD members and others who can benefit the country.”
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Thank you both for engaging; you make some good points. My argument here is not so much that ethnic people no longer have a voice without many of these ethnic parties but that they no longer have the same voice. Many ethnic parties have proved dynamic platforms for ethnic voices and inter-ethnic political engagement over recent years; emerging political visions have been built, to good effect, around specific ethnic rights and interests; they have worked to represent the margins from being marginalised culturally as well as politically by the centre. Without many of them many ethnic voices will struggle to be heard in the same way and I hope this implication came across.
Having said that, as I acknowledged in some detail in the final third of this post, ethnic parties have had and still have a significant influence on a whole range of issues and in a range of ways. Indeed, there is now nothing new about strong ethnic sub-committees at NPD and state levels working on ethnic rights, so there seems little doubt we will see these again. How these ethnic parties will mobilise on the margins remains to be seen but I feel, given the right support, we could be seeing some very positive developments on that front, especially within this more positive and permissive political context.
How the NLD will respond to this is perhaps still more interesting. In many ways ethnic politics has been reconstituted with these elections and it will take some time for the country to adjust to this, to view the NLD as another, just bigger ethnic party; above all, for the party itself to do so. I very much hope that it will change to reflect its membership; that its leadership will change to reflect it’s membership. But this is asking a lot at least in the short term, sustainable or not, despite what the pace of change might suggest. However, as you now point out Moe Aung, there are other proposed strategies for including ethnic voices which is an exciting prospect and a possible entry point for unrepresented ethnic parties; much will depend on the scale and practical commitment to such initiatives.
What is going to be particularly interesting is to observe how the NLD will work as a vehicle for minority voices and national transformation – a potential clash of interests for some issues, peoples and regions; if any one party can pull it off it is the NLD but much of the pressure will fall on NLD ethnic representatives pulled one way by the party and the other by the people. This would seem to be the new battleground for ethnic politics and one which ethnic parties and ethnic voices will be watching closely.
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Surely it would be rather remiss of us if we forget the ‘battleground’ both literally and metaphorically remains not so much the ethnic minorities facing the NLD as their having to grapple with the Tatmadaw.
Too much credit is given to the party in power very good at going through the motions replete with the trappings of parliamentary committees and the service of peace brokers but lacking the political will as the ethnic peoples themselves have expressed their opinion by way of the ballot box.
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[…] : ├Йdith Disdet Source : Richard Nolan / The New Mandala Keeping afloat after the ‘red wave’ Photo : chrisjohnbeckett / Foter.com […]
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