The Election of 1990

THE ELECTIONS OF 1990

The great social upheaval of 1988 left Burma's military dictatorship still holding onto control of the country, but its position was vulnerable. On 25 July 1988, prior to the general strike, Burma's desperate economic situation obliged the regime to abandon isolationism by seeking foreign aid and investment. But the military's savage repression of peaceful demonstrations had outraged the world and had left the regime an international pariah. Donor nations, particularly the United States and the European Community, had discontinued aid during the popular uprising; potential foreign investors found the political situation too unstable to merit wise investment; and few countries would recognize the legitimacy of the new military regime. This dilemma caused Burma's rulers to make a serious miscalculation. In December 1988 they again promised multiparty elections, but restricted the opposition. Their gamble was this: By strictly controlling the electoral process, they could come out of the election with either a parliament controlled by the military or one so divided and factionalized that it would be thoroughly ineffectual. Either outcome would leave the generals in power and would gain them the fig leaf of international legitimacy they urgently needed. Even the military regime's opponents concurred that this was a reasonable gamble. Most observers predicted that the "election" would be a manipulated sham. The International Human Rights Law Group, after observing the preelection campaign, concluded that SLORC "grossly breached minimum campaigning freedoms, including the exercise of freedom of assembly and expression." Restrictions were extraordinary. SLORC controlled all of Burma's media. Its martial law edicts stated that to criticize the government was a criminal offense. Public rallies could be held only with government permission, and all public speeches had to be precensored. Hundreds of thousands of potential prodemocracy voters in the cities were forcibly and permanently removed into rural areas and effectively disenfranchised . On 20 July 1989 Aung San Suu Kyi, U Tin U, U Nu, and more than forty leaders of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the opposition party founded by Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin U, were placed incommunicado under house arrest and prevented from further campaigning for office. U Tin U was subsequently sentenced to three years in prison for "sedition." A countrywide roundup of as many as six thousand NLD supporters, students, and other opposition leaders followed. SLORC shortened prison terms of 7,000 ordinary criminals to make room in prisons and detention centers for these new detainees. The elections were held on 27 May 1990. Given the severity of these repressive measures, the outcome of this first multiparty election in 30 years stunned Burma and the world. No less than 93 parties contested the election. When the votes were counted, the National League for Democracy had won an extraordinary mandate from the people: 392 of the 485 seats contested, 82 percent of the seats. Ne Win's Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP), now renamed the National Unity Party, had won ten seats. The regime's gamble had failed spectacularly in a humiliating defeat. Despite centuries of autocratic kings, decades of colonial rule, and 28 years of dictatorship, the will of the people had been clear: the generals must go. With a new government now duly elected, SLORC had lost any real claim to legitimacy. But, fearing Nuremburg-style trials and reprisals and unwilling to forfeit wealth, privilege, and power, SLORC responded to the elections much as they had to the demonstrations. Refusing to transfer power until a new constitution was written, the regime systematically destroyed the National League for Democracy by imprisoning, murdering, or intimidating its leaders and elected representatives. Aung San Suu Kyi and U Nu were kept under house arrest. U Tin U remained in prison. Some of the new legislators fled to the border areas to pin the students and ethnic minorities in the resistance. Once the National League for Democracy was in tatters, in 1991 SLORC announced that it would not transfer power to that party because it was "unfit to rule."