2020 Election Result Accurately Reflected Voters’ Will: Poll Monitor
A protest is staged against the military coup in Yangon on Feb. 14. / The Irrawaddy
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By The Irrawaddy 17 May 2021
Rejecting the claims of mass fraud and voting irregularities used by the Myanmar military to justify its coup, an international monitoring group said in its final report on the results of last year’s polls that the vote reflected the true will of the electorate.
The November 2020 general election brought another landslide victory for the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Voters wait to cast their ballots in Yangon on Nov. 8, 2020. / The Irrawaddy
by Daniel Opacki / February 9th, 2021
When I arrived in Rangoon in 2008, I felt as though I stepped into the pages of a forgotten colonial story within a musty old book. As I looked around Rangoon on my daily walks outward from central Rangoon, I saw the city was fully developed but neglected and abused by a lack of electricity and repair. Staunch British colonial architecture often sat behind rusted barbed wired fence pinched by wild-grown landscape and tall cackled trees. Absent in the decayed city was an overabundance of cars on the streets. Generators on curbsides everywhere belched exhaust into sweet jasmine air and shot power into buildings. Still, most people had no generators, and for them, the Dictatorship doled out stingy amounts of current late at night, usually between one to five in the morning. Burma’s people lived without basic necessities everyone in the modern world took for granted. Life moved slowly among street markets and sidewalk teashops that edged into the
History repeats itself, but with a difference
History is the devil’s scripture, and the irony was brought home by the return of the
Junta in Myanmar (erstwhile Burma).
On July 19 1947, a 32 year old, General Bogyote Aung San, serving as the 5th Premier of the British Crown Colony of Burma, was assassinated by rivals from the Burmese Military. Before that bloody end, Aung San had been a tempestuous revolutionary who had flirted with various political ideologies and international ‘allies’ to win Burmese independence.
He was also the founder of Myanmar Armed Forces (
Tatmadaw) – a small and disunited force then, that too had switched alliances from the Japanese to the Allied Forces, only to see power challenges leading to the brutal assassination of General Aung San.
Myanmar s Military Backslides to its Old Strong-Arm Tactics
It is difficult to see how the military will benefit from today’s actions, since the power-sharing arrangement it had struck with the NLD under the 2008 constitution had already allowed it to expand its influence and economic interests in the country.
Just before the newly elected members of Myanmar’s parliament were due to be sworn in today, the military detained the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi; the president, Win Myint; and other key figures from the elected ruling party, the National League for Democracy.
The military later announced it had taken control of the country for 12 months and declared a state of emergency. This is a coup d etat, whether the military calls it that or not.
Los laberintos de Myanmar y la verdad sobre Aung San Suu Kyi: ¿Heroína o traidora? clarin.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from clarin.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.