Burmese Generals Counter Electoral Defeat with Coup d’État
March 9, 2021 Share
This article is part of the Middle East-Asia Project (MAP) series on “ Civilianizing the State in the Middle East and Asia Pacific Regions.” See More …
In the November 8, 2020 national elections in Myanmar, voters returned 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) to power. The party actually improved on its impressive 2015 showing at the polls, gaining well over four-fifths of the seats it ran for allowing it to form a government on its own. (The Burmese Constitution, written in 2008 by the generals, reserves a quarter of the seats in each assembly to the armed forces.) The NLD won 920 (or 82%) of the 1,117 seats it contested, adding a total of 61 seats. The main opposition party, the military-affiliated Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), won only 71 seats, 46 fewer than in 2015.
The empire strikes back in Myanmar
Unfortunately, the international community failed to take deterrent measures against the military regime
The writer is former Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Karachi and can be reached at [email protected]
Ever since the military of Myanmar launched a coup on February 1 this year, and deposed the government of state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and president Win Myint, the country has been in deep political turmoil. A chain of events like the imposition of emergency, detention of both president and state counsellor, usurpation of power by Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services General Min Aung Hlaing and widespread crackdown against anti-coup protesters reflects a dangerous situation in Myanmar.
Myanmar Coup Puts China In Tough Spot
Posted by Joseph Brouwer | Feb 18, 2021
Disinformation linking Myanmar’s recent coup d’état to Chinese influence has inspired anti-China protests in the capital, Yangon. Protesters’ suspicions were inflamed by a meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Myanmar’s senior military staff that took place just weeks before the coup and a peculiar statement issued by Xinhua in the immediate wake of the coup describing it as a “major cabinet reshuffle.” International relations experts point out that it is highly unlikely that China orchestrated the coup seeing as Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s deposed leader, had guided the two countries’ rapprochement in recent years. At The Financial Times, John Reed and Edward White wrote about
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A projection in Yangon, Myanmar, of the three-finger “Hunger Games” salute and a dove signifying peace.Credit.The New York Times
Art and defiance in Myanmar
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in central Yangon on Wednesday, the biggest rally since the start of protests against a coup, holding up posters and signs designed for the Instagram generation.
As with protests in Thailand and Hong Kong, art, memes and creative dissent have become a tool for demonstrators in Myanmar. Artists are providing the uprising with graffiti, hip-hop, poems, anthems, cartoons and paintings that share their messages. Art collectives are producing free designs so that protesters can print them for signs.