Rebranding Myanmar?

Again, the military dictatorship of Myanmar makes the front page. But wait a sec... this time it's not about some slaughtering or denying emergency aid while people are dying. It seems that the junta wants to make an impression and, this time, better its image. So, shortly, a sentence we haven't seen in almost 20years is bombarding us from the news : "Myanmar helds elections on November 7th!"


Don't get your hopes up, however. Although the polls have at least allowed a tiny flicker of pluralist light into the murk of Burmese totalitarianism, their main goal was to reinforce and legitimize the power of the ruling junta. Obviously, they couldn't let some girl gain power, so they disbanded the National League for Democracy (NLD) just in case. A heated debate still remains over the process of democratization of such countries. Some may argue that a half-democracy is better than no democracy, while others give the example of Iran's election to prove that a half-democracy is NO democracy. 


Here's what the Economist says about the "changes" In Myanmar:

"ONCE again, Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the Burmese opposition, is in theory at liberty. Her latest spell of house arrest ended on November 13th, when she came briefly out of her home in Yangon, where she had been detained, to greet a crowd of thousands of delighted supporters. In the past, such spells of freedom have been illusory. The junta has placed such strict limits on her activities that she has in effect simply been released into a larger prison.

This time, Miss Suu Kyi emerges into a somewhat changed political landscape. On November 7th the junta staged the first elections for 20 years. They were designed not so much to pass power to civilian politicians as to entrench the junta's own power. Its front “party” has indeed claimed a massive victory."