Party Mergers in Myanmar: A New Development

Summary

INTRODUCTION

After a lengthy hiatus, Myanmar's electoral politics resumed with the adoption of the country's 2008 Constitution, the re-emergence of political parties and the first election in two decades in 2010. A second round of national elections was held in 2015, with the next round intended to be held in the last quarter of 2020. Since 2010, many political parties have registered and engaged in the political process. There are currently ninety-four officially registered political parties—of which an estimated fifty-five are ethnic parties. Both Bamar-dominated national parties and non-Bamar ethnic parties cannot be easily positioned on a left/right continuum.6 In Myanmar, political dividing lines relate instead to either pro- or anti-democracy stances, pro- or anti-military stances or to historical attitudes towards reform/revolution. Furthermore, in addition to ethnic parties, there are proxy parties, splintered parties and rebranded parties, which condition party interactions and complicate Myanmar's democratic landscape.

These party categorizations relate to the fact that electoral and party politics occur in a wider political context. In Myanmar there is an ongoing peace process, initiated soon after democratic reforms in 2011, which attempts to resolve long-standing conflicts between the (majority Bamar) army known as the Tatmadaw and the actors who identify as ethnic political entities or ethnic armed organizations. A grievance underlying this conflict relates to the dominance of the central government in designated ethnic minority territories and the insubstantial say that ethnic groups have in their own affairs. The previous military government used multi-party elections to induce ethnic armed organizations to engage in politics rather than armed conflict. Despite differences among individual ethnic populations—small or large, with or without states named after their ethnic group—the overall ethnic population shares certain common goals: ethnic equality, self-determination and a federal system of governance. To achieve these ends, most ethnic groups have engaged in a two-track process: through ethnic armed organizations, which operate outside the formal political system and the 2008 Constitution, and ethnic political parties, which pursue change within the system. Myanmar's party system reflects these twin processes of democratization and the peace process. It has two major cleavages—Burman nationalism versus ethnic nationalism and authoritarian rule versus democratic rule.