Suu Kyi’s godlike status drove her Myanmar election win. It threatens to rip the country apart.

But in the fragile democracy — the place ethnic warfare rages in border areas and the coronavirus pandemic has worsened financial hardship — the consequence threatens to divide quite than unify. Ethnic minority leaders say the landslide has served to marginalize their voices whereas validating a cult of persona round Suu Kyi.

People in Myanmar “voted out of absolute trust and faith in her,” mentioned Richard Horsey, senior adviser on Myanmar for the International Crisis Group. “There is a devotion to her that is still very strong.”

Outpourings of pleasure on the streets of Yangon in current days masks the actuality that the urgent challenges dealing with the country, also called Burma, is not going to see a brand new method.

Rather, the landslide for the incumbent National League for Democracy (NLD) will entrench Suu Kyi’s “inclination toward single-party domination,” mentioned Khin Zaw Win, a former political prisoner and analyst.

“The NLD has gained a supremacist position,” he mentioned. “That does not bode well for democracy and federalism in our ethnically diverse nation.”

Monywa Aung Shin, a spokesman for the NLD, mentioned the social gathering will work towards peace and constructing a democratic federal union, as outlined in its election manifesto.

When elections swept the NLD to energy 5 years in the past, optimism surrounded Myanmar’s nascent transition from navy rule.

Suu Kyi, now 75, was put in as state counselor — she can’t be president due to a technicality in the military-drafted structure — and she or he oversaw the civilian authorities, which shares energy with the navy.

Suu Kyi vowed to finish the navy’s grip on energy by altering the structure, which reserves 1 / 4 of parliamentary seats for generals and provides the military management over a number of ministries, and to work with the military to finish generations of ethnic battle and shield particular person rights.

Two years later, Myanmar’s navy launched a scorched-earth marketing campaign towards the beleaguered Rohingya Muslim minority, razing villages and indiscriminately killing, raping and torturing. Suu Kyi, who had by no means backed citizenship rights or protections for the Rohingya, allied herself with the generals. Last yr, she personally defended Myanmar and its navy towards genocide fees at The Hague.

For many casting their votes on Nov. 8, Suu Kyi’s incapability to change the structure, take away the navy from politics or ship clear financial positive factors ended up being immaterial, or at the least secondary to their religion in her.

But for a few of the country’s greater than 130 ethnic minority teams, which account for greater than 30 p.c of the inhabitants, the pervasive public shows of assist for the NLD have bolstered the ruling social gathering’s dominance at their expense, and their notion of Suu Kyi as an icon just for the Bamar majority.

Some 1.4 million individuals in minority townships in Rakhine, Shan, Kachin and Kayin states have been denied the proper to vote, after election officers canceled or postponed elections in these areas, citing battle — a choice that worldwide observers say was not transparent. Hundreds of 1000’s of Rohingya additionally stay disenfranchised, as they have been in the earlier election.

Under Suu Kyi’s rule, battle has intensified in Rakhine state, the place an ethnic Buddhist Rakhine group often known as the Arakan Army is combating the Myanmar navy.

The country’s electoral system, which awards seats to the social gathering that receives a plurality of votes, has further sidelined ethnic minority parties, which largely failed to make positive factors both in the nationwide parliament or the regional legislatures that they hoped to management. An exception was Rakhine, the place the ethnic Arakan National Party dominates.

“Change in Myanmar is dependent only on the ruling party and the government, and how much they would like to build peace,” mentioned Tu Ja, chairman of the Kachin State People’s Party, which won one seat in the nationwide parliament.

“We don’t have a fair chance, or a shot at federalism,” he mentioned, describing Suu Kyi’s social gathering as “chauvinistic.”

Suu Kyi’s landslide win has additionally disillusioned younger activists, who’ve pushed for extra civil rights and don’t see Suu Kyi or her social gathering as representing their pursuits. There are nonetheless tons of of political prisoners in the country — although it’s led by a authorities largely constituted of former political prisoners.

Ye Wai Phyo Aung, founding father of the free-expression advocacy group Athan, mentioned the NLD ought to “stand for human rights and democratic values” that have been absent in its first time period.

“The NLD should learn a lesson about their past five years of rule, especially in political negotiations [with the military] and economic growth that they were struggling with,” he mentioned.

Long-term observers are usually not holding their breath. Adding to the unease is the lack of a transparent successor to Suu Kyi, which Khin Zaw Win warns is an “invitation to chaos and disaster.”

“Her party has not achieved much in a country where a great deal needs to be done,” he mentioned. “If this were to be repeated for a second term, things are more than likely to get worse.”

Diamond reported from Yangon.