BANGKOK – When an overwhelming electoral victory brought the National League for Democracy to a position of power in Myanmar, the party won a mandate to pull the country out of the clutches of the army after decades of relentless military rule.
The challenge was to find a way to fulfill his agenda without leading the military to retaliate. According to the Constitution drafted by the country’s military, the party had to share power with the army, which had already arrested many of its leaders.
It strove to achieve its primary objective – to strengthen the power of its singular leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. In other respects, it was in tune with the military, leaving many of its repressive laws in place. But he also lived in fear, and the party was cautious after the murder of a leading legal adviser.
For the National League for Democracy, or NLD, there was no escaping a fundamental truth: generals always had the advantage. On Monday, they shamelessly wielded it, regaining full power in a coup.
“It has always depended on the goodwill of one person, the commander in chief, not to use force to achieve his goal,” said Richard Horsey, a political analyst in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar. “The National League for Democracy has always believed that a coup was close, even when it was not. This time it was. “
Claiming that the November elections were tainted by fraud, Commander-in-Chief General Min Aung Hlaing declared a state of emergency on Monday, asserted himself as the nation’s leader and placed Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders on the detention.
For the military, known as Tatmadaw, the last straw seems to have been the unbalanced result of that election, which led the NLD to an even greater victory than the one that brought it to power in 2015. The military’s prosecuting party suffered a defeat overwhelming.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years under house arrest during the previous era of military rule, now faces a possible prison sentence on charges of illegal importation of walkie-talkies. The country seemed largely peaceful since the coup, although a government ministry ordered Facebook to be blocked until Sunday.
In its first statement on events in Myanmar, the United Nations Security Council on Thursday called for “immediate release of all detainees” and emphasized “the need for continued support for the democratic transition in Myanmar”. But the statement offered no indication of possible sanctions or other consequences. He also avoided clearly describing the crisis as a coup, in apparent deference to China, a board member with veto power and a major investor in Myanmar.
The NLD was co-founded by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi during a wave of pro-democracy protests in 1988 that helped catapult her into global attention and, three years later, a Nobel Peace Prize. With her in charge, the party united a broad coalition, from leftists to ex-military, who opposed the domination of the army.
But over time, the party became a vehicle for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s ambitions alone.
And while the word “democracy” remains in its name and origins, the party for years has been less than a beacon of democratic values.
In the November election, the party-appointed electoral commission excluded millions of people from various ethnic backgrounds, including persecuted Rohingya Muslims, from the polls.
Critics started calling the party a cult of personality. Often criticized for her stubbornness and imperious style, she has kept the party firmly under her command and is known for demanding loyalty and obedience from her followers.
Initially, the party’s top-down structure stemmed from its need to survive under military rule, as many of its leaders were caught and sentenced to long prison terms. The charges were sometimes obscure – like instructing a bodyguard in martial arts – but the effect was no less serious.
“The strict nature of the NLD was forged through military persecution,” said David Scott Mathieson, a longtime analyst from Myanmar. “They could only trust each other.”
This rigid hierarchy also reflected the party’s military heritage.
The other four co-founders of the NLD were retired high-ranking military officers, including U Tin Oo, a former commander-in-chief of the Tatmadaw. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, General Aung San, was the founder of Tatmadaw and leader of the nation’s independence movement until his assassination in 1947.
Although the organization started as a grassroots movement, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has always shown deference to the institution her father founded, even when her generals arrested her.
“She saw how her destiny ended her father’s business,” said Horsey. “The NLD was more about Suu Kyi than a party.”
In the early days after the party’s victory in the 2015 elections, its leaders were cautious in challenging the military. But others say they could have done more, such as repealing repressive laws and protecting the rights of activists and ethnic groups.
“They could have done a lot of things while they were in power,” said Nyo Nyo Thin, a former regional legislator. “They could have passed a law to limit the commander-in-chief’s power.”
But party leaders feared that any move to undermine Tatmadaw’s authority could unleash a coup.
“The thought was, if you do it too fast, the military will have an excuse to get in,” said Mathieson, the Myanmar analyst. “They said, ‘It took us years to get here, we are not going to screw it up now.”
When the party formed its first government in 2016, one of its initial challenges was how to circumvent a provision written in the Constitution by the military that expressly forbade Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to serve as president.
Following the advice of a prominent human rights lawyer, U Ko Ni, the party created the position of state councilor, who is not in the constitution but is similar to the head of state. Assuming the title of state counselor, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi promptly declared herself above the president.
“She shared many political instincts with the military,” said Horsey, the analyst in Yangon. “There were a lot of things that they agreed on. What she challenged them with was her firm view that she should be president. “
Mr. Ko Ni also presented a plan to replace the constitution drafted by the military with a new version that would strip Tatmadaw of its extraordinary powers. But Mr. Ko Ni was shot in broad daylight in early 2017 at Yangon airport while holding his baby grandson. The plan was shelved.
“This bullet was not just for Ko Ni,” said a colleague at the time, human rights lawyer U Thein Than Oo. “It was for the NLD”
Four men were convicted of the murder, including two ex-servicemen, but it has never been proven that the Tatmadaw ordered the murder. A former colonel was identified as the principal, but was never arrested.
The murder – and the threat of further violent retaliation – hovered like a cloud over relations between the party and the military. The party did not offer new challenges to the constitutional authority of the military until last year, when it unsuccessfully proposed that the share of military seats in Parliament be reduced.
“The result was that the NLD became much more cautious and they were even more convinced that they were in an existential battle,” said Horsey.
Ultimately, Myanmar’s contentious civil-military partnership fell apart because of two people’s rival desire to be presidents: the Lady and the General.
General Min Aung Hlaing promised to hold new elections within a year. Many doubt that he will keep his promise. A free election with all participating parties is unlikely to bring the result you want.
“The military has two problems,” said Horsey. “Aung San Suu Kyi is incredibly popular and they are incredibly unpopular.”
Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from Eastham, Massachusetts.