Laying Myths About Myanmar’s 2021 Coup to Rest

The Irrawaddy

he leaders of the Myanmar military have, at last, got a government and parliament that suit their interests, and they can expect that China, India, Russia and Belarus as well as some countries in the region will accept the new order. Seen from the military’s point of view, the coup in February 2021 has been a success. The once mighty National League for Democracy (NLD) has been dissolved and ceased to exist as a functioning  political party. The armed resistance, which made spectacular headway in the years immediately after the coup, has been contained and is torn apart by factional infighting.

The answer to the question why there was a coup should, therefore, be obvious. The military wanted to reconsolidate power and crush the opposition or, at least, make it irrelevant. But there are still misperceptions why Senior General and now President Min Aung Hlaing decided to send his troops and armored vehicles into Naypyitaw and Yangon on that fateful day five years ago—and the same alternative versions of reality only serve to bolster the military’s claim that it had no choice but to intervene and assume the reins of power.

One foreign analyst has argued that Daw Aung Suu Kyi had it coming, she brought this upon herself because she refused to talk to the military. In the days immediately after the coup, another foreign observer tried to promote the notion that the coup was Plan B, Plan A was to talk to her—she was stubborn, so Plan B was implemented. A third, prominent Myanmar watcher has claimed that the coup was the outcome of a personal power struggle between Min Aung Hlaing and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and that the formal mechanisms of the state could not mediate the friction between them.

Events leading up to the coup suggest a simpler and more plausible scenario. The military and its Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) had reluctantly accepted the outcome of the 2015 election. which led to a landslide victory for the NLD, but were not willing to accept a victory for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party at the next polls in 2020. The military had actually expected the USDP to win in 2015 because it believed that then President Thein Sein had become popular because he opened up the country and was received abroad as some kind of reformer. In 2020, they were again convinced that the NLD would lose, this time because it seemed to have lost popularity among the urban population and in ethnic minority areas.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD may have failed to live up to people’s expectations, but that didn’t matter. The military never understood that the 2015 and 2020 elections were seen by most voters as a choice between the old order, represented by the USDP, and a desire for a brighter future, which they believed could become only become reality under an NLD-led government.

Rather than being a spur-of-the-moment action caused by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi having turned down a request for a dialogue, or some personal rivalry between her and Min Aung Hlaing, events before and on the day of the coup show that it had been meticulous planned well in advance of the actual takeover. The military needed only a few hours seize absolute control of all organs of power in Naypyitaw and arrest President U Win Myint, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected leaders.

Preparations seem to have begun as early as a few weeks after the November 2020 election. Between late November and early January, the military issued dozens of statements claiming it had found millions of instances of potential voter fraud, including duplicate names on voter lists. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, or ACLED, which provides data on political violence and protests worldwide, recorded at least 45 demonstrations in the wake of the November election by supporters of the  military claiming election fraud. These demonstrations were often organized by the military-backed USDP. It added that the demonstrations “became more violent in the weeks right before the coup.”

There may have been some irregularities, but no major international or domestic observer group found evidence of the mass fraud or “8.6 million suspicious entries” the military later alleged. The U.S.-based Carter Center assessed the conduct of voting “positively” and stated after its observers had visited 234 polling stations voters that voters had been “able to freely express their will” in 94 percent of them. The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), a regional NGO, described the election as “peaceful and orderly,” and while ANFREL’s observers noted some procedural inconsistencies, they concluded that these did not affect the overall integrity of the vote.

Primarily due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU did not deploy a full observation mission but provided financial support to other monitoring bodies and, on Nov. 9, issued a statement saying that the election was an “important milestone” in “Myanmar’s democratic transition.” The EU also commended the high voter turnout and the peaceful nature of the voting process, especially given the “challenging circumstances” of the pandemic, and that “the people of Myanmar clearly demonstrated their commitment to the democratic process.”

Allegations of widespread voter fraud, then, were a thin excuse for staging a coup. It was clear that the generals had grown weary of demands by civilian politicians for a more genuine democracy, including calls for constitutional amendments to curb the power of the military, and wanted them removed. And that could only be done by force.

Fast-forward five years, and to broaden the new government’s appeal, several advisory bodies have been established. There is now an 11-member Union Advisory Council headed by former Deputy Commander-in-Chief Soe Win. It also includes Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein, a veteran civilian politician whose father served as minister in pre-1962-coup governments; Yin Yin Nwe, the daughter of the saohpa, or prince, of the Shan state of Kengtung; and Mahn Nyein Maung, a politician who rose to fame when, in the 1970s, he managed to escape from a penal colony on the Coco Islands and then earned the nickname “Myanmar’s Papillon”. But as one observer succinctly put it, an advisor to an authoritarian entity is a person whose opinion is asked for after a decision has been made.

Min Aung Hlaing is also trying to revive the so-called peace process by setting up a National Solidarity and Peacemaking Central Committee and a National Solidarity and Peacemaking Negotiation Committee as well as making a lot of references to the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). But that agreement is history as several of the signatories have returned to armed struggle and those who have not are small and insignificant. The release of U Win Myint and some other  political prisoners on April 17 was meant to improve the image of the new military-directed government—and who knows, it may work and convince some observers that it marks the beginning of some kind of process leading to national reconciliation.

But all those initiatives lack substance, and the core issue remains uncertain: how secure is Min Aung Hlaing’s position as leader of the new-style regime? Soe Win has been sidelined in what appears to be a purge aimed at replacing more professional soldiers with Min Aung Hlaing loyalists, among them spy master Ye Win Oo who, remarkably and not without controversy, has been appointed commander-in-chief of Defense Services. Only time will tell—but if there is a change at the top, it will come from within the military.