Submitted by Aung San U on Mon, 09/21/2020 - 13:41

Value Voting 2020

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Preamble: 

This article is written for thoughtful Myanmar readers. Myanmar is an inclusive word meaning Bamar, Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Shan, Mon, Rakhine, all Myanmar citizens, etc. When word Burmese or Burma is used, it has to do with British usage during their rule or as leftover usage. Foreign readers are unlikely to know the sense of some of the Bamar words in this article. This is written as an article, in order to stay compact. Elaboration generally is kept to a minimum.

This article is an excerpt from a larger article "Common Sense Understanding for Constitutional Law and how it impacts, or otherwise, Myanmar Political Realities since 1948" (should be an article on this web page). The larger article provides more background information for the 2020 November election of Myanmar. It has the associated references and a broader presentation regarding the topics of Constitutional Law, and Myanmar political realities since 1948. This article below is a very slightly modified version of the summary and conclusion section of that larger article.

The biggest question for the upcoming 2020 November election is how will the Myanmars consider who they will vote, and what kind of government in the following years are they expecting. Given the current political circumstances voting in terms of party lines does not sound like a good idea. This article should provide meaningful options for readers to think about.

Myanmar after about 20 years of Independence (1948) got brutally trashed by U Nu the then prime minister, followed by General Ne Win who doubly trashed the nation. By the time the State Law and Order Restoration Council SLORC was in charge (1989) of the country, it was already in very deep garbage in every imaginable manner. They being of military background and enjoying ill-gotten gains, their willingness to understand the Rule of Law was limited, especially when the Constitution came in DoA (Dead on Arrival). Economic recovery policy was frontier style. The gang with the most hired gun hands were having very good businesses in the drug running and smuggling trades, etc. The military of course was the King of the Hill. As the generals and drug lords got wealthy, they started to think in terms of their family and children to live and study in much more progressive and safe countries abroad like USA, Australia, etc. Only then the international community figure out how they can put pressure on the Myanmar military; that unless they change their ways and be concerned of the general welfare of the people and respect the Rule of Law, they will be black listed and their foreign investments will be placed under sanctions, and outcast.

General Than Shwe the military's undisputed leader came up with his fabricated Constitution (about 2008) to set up with a "democratic" election for 2010. To make sure that Daw Aung San Su Kyi (ASSK) could not compete in that election, he extended her house arrest by 18 months. General Thein Sein became President Thein Sein for five years. Come 2015 election, it was goodbye time to President Thein Sein. ASSK's NLD (National League for Democracy) party had a landslide 2015 election victory. ASSK herself cannot be President because General Than Shwe's Constitution forbid those who marry foreigner from becoming President of Myanmar. However, ASSK managed to be above the NLD elected President without Constitutional legitimacy. NLD after more than 4 years in power accomplished nothing. Nothing regarding education or economy. Nothing regarding the Rule of Law. Everything meaningful less than President Thein Sein.

ASSK for herself and NLD's un-accomplishments direct blame to the zombie like Constitution of General Than Shwe, that prevent her team to be successful of anything meaningful. Those who have read the article "Common Sense Understanding for Constitutional Law and how it impacts, or otherwise, Myanmar Political Realities since 1948", know that is simply pure lies. There are many positive endeavors that can be accomplished even if the Constitution is barely breathing and alive. The real reasons are that ASSK herself, in her personal life was totally unaccomplished. She had never functioned at a professional level in her entire life before she stumbled into Myanmar politics. She was mainly a house wife. Occasionally children school teacher. ASSK's foreign backers before NLD won the 2015 elections bestowed upon her many accolades, awards and prizes, including Nobel Peace Prize (see Web). Just about all the awards except the Nobel Peace Prize have been revoked when they finally realized the kind of limited person ASSK is. There were even serious talks of revoking the Nobel Peace Prize also, but that would generate much more problem and damage to the Peace Prize givers for not knowing who they were really dealing with.

The World is evolving faster and faster. Whatever progress we have experienced in the last three decades is going to be tiny compared with what is going to happen in the coming thirty years. Constitutional laws will be needing amendments often because of fast social, economic, technology, etc., evolutions. The Constitution needs to be very good in order to be reasonably Future Proof as well. There is going to be large scale demographic changes within Myanmar. Myanmar people are not racialists. By year 2050, with improved roadways and communications, in big cities, the mestizos (original usage, Spanish mix with South American Indian, but modern usage mean mixture of many mix races) population is likely to increase greatly and usually become the dominant political force. Negative aspects of tribalism will rapidly go out of fashion. What may be considered now as very important issues or almost intractable problems, in the face of an advance future, can change to be only of minor importance within a decade. Those trouble makers who think they can profit now by exploiting needless social belligerencies, will soon be ignored by thoughtful people. Because of evolution of highly advance methodologies of doing business, the way of running the government will most likely be using massive amount of cyber technologies. Good education opportunities and improved economics are to be the most sought after.

By year 2030, only ten years from now, Myanmar's next door neighbor China is targeted to have the highest GDP in the world, (YouTube video: 

[1]Einar Tangen, China Emerging as Global Power;

 
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[2]China Plan to Moon, Mars.)

 
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and reaching out to the moon to establish human colonies. China, the fastest developing nation on this planet has many of its executives with double degrees, and one of those degree is to be in some kind of engineering. All of them have to have significant project management experiences before being elevated to high governmental positions. YouTube video: 

[3]Road and Belt.

 
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The mindset and concomitant culture of Myanmar's military and civilian political leadership has not much progressive since after various despotic regimes and are stagnant in many ways. ASSK's top NLD team has very few qualified people who have any leadership experience for managing large scale projects prior to their current high governmental role positions. The only thing they seemed to possess is never ending amount of polemics.

The biggest question now is can the Myanmars proactively embrace (not after hard lessons) the coming future, starting now. The military and the NLD governments were not progressive enough and simply were\are nothing more than being dominators. That left the Myanmars with voting for the untested coalition of smaller political parties. Voting in terms of party lines does not sound like a good idea for the current political circumferences.

At the coming 2020 November election, the best course for the people are to diligently vote for the best and most capable candidates with integrity regardless of what party their affiliations are. The idea is to deny overwhelming victories to any party that had previously gained state power and demonstrated no sufficient integrity. If the outcome of the election favored the smaller parties enough to form a meaningful coalition, even if they cannot form the Nation's government on their own, they may still be able to negotiate with those in power and implement needed legislative reforms. If the new class of 2020 Members of Parliament (MPs) are more correctly motivated MPs, they will be able to serve their country and look after own kind better. They should have a clear agenda of what they will do for their constituencies in terms of cultural, education and economic advancements.  If their own twisted party leaders started to disrespect the Rule of Law, these traitors should soon be feeling confronted with insurrection problems. 

Bogyoke Aung San would want all Myanmars to be happy and to be living a fulfill life in a progressive country, and would want to end once and for all, his and our beloved country being trashed again and again.