2 - Parliamentary Life under the NLD

Summary

An increasingly dominant view in Myanmar's policy circles suggests that the Union parliament – or Pyidaungsu Hluttaw – has been steadily marginalised under the leadership of the National League for Democracy (NLD). Since the pro-democracy party took control of both chambers of the bicameral body after the 2015 elections, the most sustained explanations relate to the latter's relatively timid output in lawmaking. This stands in stark contrast with the first post-junta legislature, dominated between 2011 and 2016 by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which proved far more prolific in terms of legislative outputs (Kean 2014; Fink 2015; Egreteau 2017a). Growing criticism within Myanmar's political and civil society circles about the erosion of parliamentary power since 2016 has also being directed at the fledgling leadership of the new ruling party, and its charismatic patron Aung San Suu Kyi. Bill initiation has been dictated by the commanding heights of the NLD. Party discipline has, by and large, also been more strictly enforced by NLD whips in the two chambers. Lastly, unlike during the previous USDP term, personal rivalries have not translated into open, politically motivated confrontations between the executive and legislative organs of government. This suggests that the balance of power has resolutely shifted to the executive, and the State Counselor Office in particular, after 2016.

This chapter examines the functioning of the second post-junta Union legislature elected in November 2015. It interrogates whether the entrance in parliament of a large cohort of legislators drawn from pro-democracy forces – only 13 per cent of incumbent MPs were re-elected in 2015 – has translated into meaningful changes in legislative behaviour, lawmaking processes and the tentative control of the executive branch. How has parliamentary life been shaped under the dominance of the new ruling party? How have the three core functions of parliament identified by the most recent scholarship on legislative studies, the good governance community and Myanmar parliamentary leaders themselves (Beetham 2006) – representation, lawmaking and oversight – been performed since the NLD took control of the legislature?