Myanmar Spring Chronicle – Scene on September 26
(MoeMaKa) September 27, 2024
What is the Purpose Behind the Military Council’s Invitation for Political Dialogue?
The military council, without specifying a concrete date for the election they claim will take place, has set October 1, 2024, as the deadline for conducting a census. A week before this date, the current ruling military council, known as the State Administration Council, issued an invitation for peace talks under the headline “An Invitation to Solve Political Problems Through Political Means.”
The statement, organized in three points, starts by reiterating the military’s narrative: that the coup on February 1, 2021, occurred due to political issues arising from alleged electoral fraud in the 2020 election. It claims that political efforts to resolve these peacefully were ignored, leading the military to seize power in accordance with the 2008 Constitution.
In the second section, it discusses the consequences of the ongoing conflict, including the loss of human resources, damage to infrastructure, and the displacement of people. It asserts that these setbacks have hindered the country’s development. The military council reiterates its goal of holding a free and fair multiparty election and handing over power to the government that emerges from it.
However, the statement omits any mention of the role the military’s seizure of power played in escalating the armed conflict. Moreover, despite the stated goal of holding elections, the country has yet to reach even the census-taking stage after nearly four years since the coup.
Since the coup, it has been evident that the military intends to hold elections only when they are confident of securing a victory, likely through a setup that ensures their favored party, like the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), wins decisively. Additionally, there is no intention to rush the process.
In most cases of military coups around the world, elections are only held after the coup leaders have restructured the political landscape to ensure their continued power. An example close to Myanmar is Thailand, where after the 2014 coup, the military junta rewrote the constitution and only held elections five years later, in 2019, with the coup leader himself becoming prime minister.
Likewise, Myanmar’s military leader appears to be delaying the election process to create favorable conditions for retaining power. But Myanmar is different from Thailand in terms of economic stability and the ongoing internal conflict. It faces issues like poverty, unemployment, and other urgent problems that cannot be overlooked.
In the third point of the statement, the military council offers an olive branch to ethnic armed groups, described as “terrorist organizations,” as well as People’s Defense Forces (PDF), urging them to abandon violence and resolve political issues through elections or political dialogue.
This invitation, however, contradicts the council’s recent labeling of these groups as terrorists, raising questions about its sincerity. For example, they recently declared some ethnic armed groups as terrorists and continue to refer to the PDF as a terrorist group in this so-called peace invitation.
In summary, the military council’s invitation seems more like an attempt to legitimize their proposed election than a genuine change in stance toward their adversaries. It’s clear that there has been no shift in the military’s core positions, and the elections remain a tool to prolong their hold on power.