IT WAS an extraordinary moment, and seen by many as a happy culmination to a long, often bloody and always wrenching story: this week Myanmar swore in a new president as the titular head of the first civilian-led, democratic government to take office after decades of military-backed rule. It followed a landslide win for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) in a November election that made crystal-clear what ordinary Burmese no longer wanted: the army running their affairs.
And yet. Look more closely, and the army has not vanished from political life but still lies at the heart of it. Take the matter of the president, who is chosen by the national assembly. Those voting for the NLD in November were really voting for Miss Suu Kyi, daughter of the country’s founding father, Aung San, and figurehead of the democratic movement during years of house arrest until her release in 2010. She would have been a shoo-in to be president had the constitution drawn up by the army not disqualified her, for having children with British passports. The ban on foreign spouses and children appears to have been written expressly with her in...Continue reading
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