Was It A Parliamentary Election or Not?

Whatever the answer, the people rejected military rule

Burma has more than its fair share of miserable anniversaries. One of the more baffling of them falls on May 27, the anniversary of arguably the most spectacular ignored general election in history. The ruling generals of the State Law and Order Restoration Council first confounded their many critics by holding a relatively free and fair ballot, and then completely dumbfounded them by carrying on as if it had never occurred.

The SLORC leadership faces the press

A poll of some sort was not so surprising. In January 1989, SLORC Chairman Snr-Gen Saw Maung had promised in an interview with me for Asiaweek magazine, a regional news weekly, that there would be free and fair elections. “I give you my guarantee,” he said, offering no specific date.

“These responsibilities are burdens I had to take on because of historical need,” explained Saw Maung. “In the armed forces, we are not backed by a political party. In the next general election, none of us is going to stand for election.”  Just as well. Had they done so, they would certainly not have been elected. The Union Nationals Democracy Party of another prominent soldier, retired Brig-Gen Aung Gyi, fielded 247 candidates, only one of whom was elected.

SLORC had seized power bloodily in September 1988 after six weeks of inconclusive pro-democracy demonstrations nationwide. “The country has come back from an abyss, and I saved the country, for the good of the people, according to law,” declared Saw Maung. At the time of the interview, Saw Maung’s biggest critic, Aung San Suu Kyi, secretary general of the National League for Democracy, was touring the Irrawaddy Delta in defiance of the military, and engaged in what she called a “Battle Royal” with the regional commander in Bassein, Brig-Gen Myint Aung.

She was barely audible as she yelled at me down a terrible telephone line into the British Embassy. Although the Asiaweek interview was the first of its kind with a Burmese head of state in decades, Suu Kyi was hugely unimpressed with a junta that would talk to foreign journalists but not engage in dialogue with opposition parties such as the NLD.

One could see her point, but at the time just getting the junta to talk seemed like progress of a kind. Today’s junta, the State Peace and Development Council of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, still refuses to talk to her and certainly doesn’t bother itself with irritating journalists. In fact, it seems unaccountable to anyone anywhere, and there has been no political progress of any kind in the intervening 16 years. The ignored 1990 election is still the most commonly cited evidence of this.

Despite his bluff talk in early 1989, Saw Maung was clearly a troubled man poorly equipped for the enormous problems facing him. He may actually have believed that an election was the way forward—until he saw the horrifying result.