Tag: NLD

New Myanmar museum a reminder that repression persists – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — Kyaw Soe Win, who was jailed from 1992 to 1998, now leads AAPP(B)’s work with ex-prisoners suffering mental health problems. “Friends, colleagues provided the photos to us,” he said of the hundreds of images, some grainy, faded, black and white, and dating to the 1960s. Inside the museum is a plastic table-top model of Insein, crafted by Htin Aung, another former political prisoner who works with Kyaw Soe Win. The display occupies the middle of the room alongside smaller examples of art and craft works by ex-detainees, as well as rusted shackles worn by prisoners forced to work in chain gangs in remote areas.

Suu Kyi’s NLD has a growth problem – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, made a rare admission of fallibility in a televised address to the nation on March 30. “We did what we could for the sake of our country and the people in the first year,” she said in a speech marking the first anniversary of her civilian-dominated government. “We know that we haven’t been able to make as much progress as people had hoped.” That seemed an uncharacteristic acknowledgement of a sputtering economy under her National League for Democracy-led administration. Key economic data suggest that “progress,” as Suu Kyi herself conceded, has slowed. Approved foreign direct investment is estimated to have fallen by a third in fiscal 2016, which ended on March 31, from the record $9.4 billion achieved in fiscal 2015, the last year under the government of former President Thein Sein. Annual growth in gross domestic product is expected to slow to 6.5% in fiscal year 2016, from 7.3% the previous year, according to the World Bank.

In Myanmar, business leaders confident about transition – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON – Reducing transport overheads will make doing business easier for Ruf Hou, owner of the Aung Min Thu Furniture Mart in Yangon’s Tamwe township, which depends on teak and other timber being trucked across Myanmar’s far flung road system to Yangon. Since 2011, the year the army ceded power to a military-supported civilian government, Aung Min Thu has more than doubled its staff roster to “around 100 people,” according to Ruf Hou. “Many companies come to us and offer to pay extra to have the tables, chairs done more quickly,” he said, discussing the impact of Myanmar’s recent economic growth, which he thinks will continue under a Suu Kyi-run government. “I think that a lot of investor, a lot of company will come to build factories in Myanmar,” he said.

Not a president, but a leader – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — Tin Oo is pushing 90, but much like another nonagenarian Southeast Asian politician, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, the one-time commander in chief of the Myanmar army and co-founder of the National League for Democracy shows no sign of flagging. Shoulders back, spine straight, and a booming delivery that makes a microphone superfluous, Tin Oo was phlegmatic about the NLD’s landslide victory in Myanmar’s Nov. 8 election. It was the first openly contested vote since the NLD won the 1990 elections, an outcome ignored by the ruling military. “This is progress for our side,” Tin Oo said, displaying a mastery of understatement, even as election results showed the NLD taking around 80% of the 1,150 contested seats. But for Nyan Win, another veteran NLD leader, the electoral sweep prompted some poignant reflection. “We are thinking about all the prisoners, all who worked for the NLD, all who suffered,” Nyan Win said. “We hope this election is vindication of all the years of struggle.”

After long wait, NLD confirmed as ruling party – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — For years, the political party was banned and its leading members jailed or placed under house arrest. But in an historic, once-unthinkable turnaround, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy will be able to form a single-party government early next year in Myanmar, formerly one of the world’s most durable military dictatorships. After a long, frustrating wait for the party, the latest set of results announced at noon on Nov. 12 by the country’s Union Election Commission showed the NLD had gained the two-thirds majority it needed to govern alone, with the party taking 348 national parliament seats, 19 more than it needed for a so-called “super majority.” The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party had won a mere 40 national parliament seats. Even as it waited for confirmation of its ruling party status, the NLD has been “moving on,” U Win Htein, a close aide to Suu Kyi and a retiring NLD parliamentarian, told the Nikkei Asian Review.

As NLD routs governing party, Suu Kyi seeks meeting with president, army – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — With the National League for Democracy looking likely to gain enough seats in Myanmar’s Nov. 8 poll to form a government early next year, party leader Aung San Suu Kyi has signaled her intent to meet soon with President Thein Sein, military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and parliamentary Speaker Shwe Mann. Even as vote counting continued on Wednesday, Suu Kyi requested the meeting, clearly in order to discuss the handover of power to a government that she has indicated she will run. “We cannot say exactly when they will meet as the counting process is still going at the UEC [the government’s Union Election Commission],” Zaw Htay, a presidential aide, told the Nikkei Asian Review. “Perhaps it will be next week,” Zaw Htay added. Letters from Suu Kyi to each of the three leaders requesting meetings to discuss “national reconciliation,” dated Nov. 10, were posted on the NLD Facebook page on the morning of Nov. 11. Their publication prompted swift replies — also on Facebook — from Ye Htut, the president’s spokesman, and from Shwe Mann.

Country heads to historic poll amid kaleidoscopic politics – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON – Speaking to an estimated 100,000 red-clad supporters gathered in a field beside Yangon’s Thuwanna Pagoda on Nov. 1, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared ebullient, exhorting the cheering crowd to ditch the current military-backed government. “I want to tell you again to vote for us if you want to see real changes in the country,” Suu Kyi said, her call drawing rapturous acclaim from the crowd. On Friday, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, dominated by former military men and civil servants, gathered at best 10,000 supporters in the same field, where a mix of crooners and pop acts tried to rev up the crowd up ahead of a keynote speech by Nanda Kyaw Swa, a member of the USDP’s central committee. Not content with telling the crowd that the USDP is supremely confident of holding on to power, Nanda Kyaw Swa added some extra bravado: “Let me tell you in advance that we have won.”

Small parties harbor big hopes – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — Myanmar’s Nov. 8 election is likely to be dominated by the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party and the opposition National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But about 90 other parties are also vying to win seats in the country’s first free and fair election in a quarter century. Confronted with the wealth, reach and popularity of the big two, this array of smaller parties faces a struggle to win seats — a challenge compounded by Myanmar’s first-past-the-post electoral system, a legacy of colonial rule. “The two big parties are overwhelming the smaller parties,” said Khin Maung Kyi, an official with the United Democratic Party. “They can use so many finances,” he added, pointing to the gaping disparity in resources between his party, which is fielding a mere 41 candidates in the election, and the 1,000-plus being fielded by both the NLD and USDP.

Myanmar backtracks on plan to postpone poll – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — Hours after Myanmar’s main opposition party objected to a proposal by the country’s Union Election Commission to postpone a national poll scheduled for Nov. 8, the government changed tack and announced that the vote would go ahead as scheduled. The suggestion to delay the poll was made by election commission chairman Tin Aye at an Oct. 13 meeting with several of Myanmar’s main political parties. Later that day, however, state media carried an announcement that the election will proceed on Nov. 8 as planned. Win Htein, who represented the main opposition National League for Democracy at the meeting, said the election commission’s about-turn was baffling. “I don’t know why they changed their minds,” he told the NAR. “I think they believed that the public would be angry if they changed the date.” The NLD had earlier opposed the proposed delay.

NLD decision to contest vote sets scene for possible power shift – Nikkei Asian Review

NAYPYITAW — Although the opposition National League for Democracy boycotted Myanmar’s last national elections in 2010, it always seemed unlikely it would do likewise in this year’s vote, despite some earlier suggestions to the contrary. In early 2012, the NLD won 43 out of 45 seats in parliamentary by-elections, and is widely seen by most observers as the party likely to win the lion’s share of votes in any free and fair nationwide poll. So, on July 11, just a month after party founder Tin Oo said it was unlikely that the NLD would boycott this election, party leader Aung San Suu Kyi put an end to any doubts by announcing on Saturday that the party would compete on Nov. 8. “Our aim in running is to implement the unfinished democratic reforms,” Suu Kyi said, speaking in Burmese in the capital Naypyitaw on July 11