Pretty awful stuff going down at the moment in Myanmar, as their, Aung San Suu Kyi, and members of her party have been detained which some unsubstantiated claims of a fraudulent victory. The leader is now facing jail time for up to two years.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55902070

 

This is terrifying that in any modern country, the military can just affront democracy like this no questions asked, it's been a hard fight for this country to achieve civil government and now it looks like it's been snatched away from them. I don't know what could happen to change this, but Gosh, I hope something can :/

This is definitely a depressing backsliding but as I understand it the government had already been set up in such a way that Aung San Suu Kyi / her party never really had control of the country (I think a certain percentage of seats in parliament were reserved for the military which effectively gave them permanent veto power over anything they didn't like), sadly it seemed kind of inevitable that they would eventually do this.

Yes, the military were able to nominate a substantial bloc in parliament and also had a permanent veto over changes to the constitution. Aung San Suu Kyi has been a major disappointment as leader but there has always been a feeling that she feared arrest (or worse) if she stepped too far out of line. She is clearly still revered by a very large number of people in Myanmar.

was a big supported of Aung San Suu Kyi for nearly 15 years but the minute she got power she became what she had always been fighting against :/

I admit I'm not clued up on her/Myanmar's political climate much, I understand there was still big issues during her reign and the power of the military. Just seems depressing really as they were at least elected and this is just back to the military dictatorship they were in for over fifty years :/

 

At least it gave us this:

 

@1356315137976672259

Aung San Suu Kyi is the most perfect example of a decent person turning into a trash one when given power.

 

The way they treated Rohingya Muslims (in a whole Asia to be honest) is disgusting, a true crime against humanity!!!

 

This is definitely a depressing backsliding but as I understand it the government had already been set up in such a way that Aung San Suu Kyi / her party never really had control of the country (I think a certain percentage of seats in parliament were reserved for the military which effectively gave them permanent veto power over anything they didn't like), sadly it seemed kind of inevitable that they would eventually do this.

 

Yes, it's 25% I believe.

 

As others have said Aung San Suu Kyi has been a huge disappointment since effectively taking power in 2010, not least the Rohingya genocide that was carried out a few years ago.

Aung San Suun Kyi represents the naive hope that a country like Myanmar will just become a liberal democracy like that if you put the systems in without removing the authoritarian power structures already there. I suspect that this is a planned reorganisation so that the military can prevent a weakening of their power considering ASSK's party won the recent elections quite comfortably.

 

Unfortunately I also suspect that internationally diplomats will wring their hands about this for a short while and nothing will happen, the coup will be successful and that this is the new political reality in Myanmar for now.

Its possible Aung San Suu Kyi didn't have much power anyway and just had to go along with the hardline version of Burmese nationalism that seems to dominate politics there at the moment. Of course I still hope that her and other politicians detained survive.

 

I don't think the coup will make much of a difference in terms of Myanmar's policies.

Edited February 4, 20214 yr by ElevenSnake

Sadly events have deteriorated further over the past few days - some of the reports and images are absolutely horrifying!

 

Both Russia and China refusing to condemn the action by the military and so very little prospect of a UN resolution via sanctions. : (