Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

Although most Burmese who are not beholden to the junta would like Suu Kyi to be president, Myanmar’s constitution is designed to frustrate such hopes. Clause 59F forbids anyone married to a foreigner, or whose children are of foreign birth, from running for office—a prohibition inserted specifically to exclude Suu Kyi. When I was in Yangon, the question of whether 59F would be repealed was a constant topic of conversation. Any election in which she is not allowed to participate is sure to seem hollow in Myanmar and internationally. Conversely, her election would serve as a magnet for international aid and economic revitalization, but she has remained tangled in constitutional bureaucracy. Many expressed concern that she had not built a team of experts nor designated a second-in-command. NLD insiders have fretted that the stubbornness that allowed her to survive for so long under house arrest, apart from her family, does not serve her so well now.

She looks to other people’s ability to help her cause rather than seeking intimacy. I did not meet anyone who felt he or she had a personal relationship with her. Burmese entrepreneur Misuu Borit described her as having a “kind of lonely style”; others said she seemed unable or unwilling to build the trusting human relationships that are required of a leader. “She keeps her own counsel. Everything runs to her,” Mitchell said. “It’s an authoritarian structure in that way.” A British diplomat pointed out that the next Parliament might include more pro-democracy seats, but would have fewer members with experience as public servants. “They were in jail, and since they came out, they’ve been running tea shops,” she said. “Bright, good intentions, courageous, but to run a government?” The NLD was officially registered as a political party only in 2012, though it counts core members who were involved long before registration. “How fast can you recruit all the smart people?” Borit asked. “You can’t make a baby by making love with nine women and waiting one month. These things take time—and if you have no money, it doesn’t make the recruiting any faster.” Others echoed that sentiment.

The constitutional barrier to Suu Kyi’s eligibility for election reflects larger problems with the country’s legal system. Robert San Pe, one of her legal advisers, mooted the question of whether to institute common law or civil law—the concern being that there may not be enough case history for common law. San Pe notes that many badly drafted laws are being rushed through the legislature. In 2013, Shwe Mann built a vast research library and hired fifteen hundred new parliamentary staff, but research efforts were stymied by the impossibility of locating information in an uncatalogued collection organized by donor, rather than by author, title, or subject. Laws are drafted in Burmese, with no official translations; foreign investors find themselves subject to regulations they cannot understand. One can find street vendors selling English translations of the investment laws to desperate foreigners at traffic lights in Yangon.

“Our people do not trust the courts; we do not believe in justice as delivered by the courts,” Suu Kyi has said. The constitution was ratified in September 2008, when Myanmar was reeling from Cyclone Nargis, which had killed some 140,000 people less than six months before. A recent joint committee was established to consider revising the constitution. Lawyers insisted that it must be easier to amend, and that the mandate reserving one in four legislative seats for the military should be scrapped. They objected to the lack of checks on the power of the president during a state of emergency. The president appoints both the chief justice and the rest of the Supreme Court, and the members need not have any legal background. The 109-member committee for revision of the constitution has invited suggestions from ordinary citizens, and more than forty thousand have poured in.

Ma Thida argued that constitutional reform would be required for Suu Kyi to run; that such reform would require the cooperation of the junta; and that if the junta enacted this reform, she would emerge as part of their plan rather than their fierce opponent. “She saves them,” Thida said, and seemed pleased at the thought that Shwe Mann might run against Suu Kyi.