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Disciplining Democracy: Explaining the Rhythms of Myanmar’s First Hluttaw, 2011–2016
Abstract
Myanmar’s first Hluttaw (Administrative Assembly, which ran from 2011 to 2016) proved that transitions from military dictatorship to new forms of government can occur rapidly, and unexpectedly. The formation of its new legislative culture introduced significant changes to Myanmar society. It also showcased a deliberate effort to evoke earlier systems of power in Myanmar society, especially those with monarchical or socialist designations. Future legislative cultures will likely draw on a similar array of cultural concepts, especially where they are rooted in Myanmar’s dominant Theravada Buddhist heritage. The first Hluttaw therefore offered a glimpse of the potential for Myanmar to create its own form of representative democracy, with a robust legislative culture and an awareness that unelected elites may one day take a lesser role in the country’s government.
... The USDP controlled the inaugural post-junta legislature between January 2011 and January 2016. Others have highlighted how the 664-member bicameral parliament, or Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, attempted to exert meaningful checks on the first post-junta executive branch and the presidency of retired General Thein Sein during this period (Farrelly and Chit Win, 2018;Chit Win, 2016). After the second round of post-junta elections organised in 2015, a number of studies have also elucidated how the Myanmar parliament has morphed into a startling site for increased public debate and representation of the people following the landslide victory of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) (Egreteau, 2017a). ...
... 26 Parliamentary question time has, nonetheless, proved a key instrument for performing a tentative scrutiny of the public sector and its officials under both legislatures. 27 Despite criticism about the lengthy notice period needed before tabling a question (ten days), several MPs in the first post-junta parliament -particularly ethnic lawmakers -rapidly learnt how to make the most of their question time slot (Farrelly and Chit Win, 2018). Contrary to initial expectations, the USDP-dominated parliament indeed proved an increasingly open arena, with many backbenchers delighted to publicly show what they stood for, or against, during plenary sessions. ...
This article investigates the patterns of parliamentary change observed in Myanmar since a constitutionally sanctioned, partially elected legislature was revived in January 2011. In particular, it poses the question as to whether processes of legislative institutionalisation have taken place in the course of the 2010s. Grounded on ethnographic work carried out between 2013 and 2018 in Myanmar’s Union parliament, established in Naypyitaw, the article explores how in the two post-junta legislatures elected in 2010 and 2015 a number of institutional legacies and parliamentary procedures and functions have been both reintroduced and also reappropriated. The findings point to emerging patterns of routinisation of some legislative tasks and duties performed by neophyte lawmakers and parliamentary staff alike. It is argued that, despite persistent capacity and efficiency problems, and a continuing dominance of the executive and the armed forces in the post-junta context, a parliamentary culture has re-emerged in Myanmar. The article concludes by drawing attention to how a process of legislative institutionalisation has been developed, albeit cursorily.
This article investigates the legislative activity of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's iconic dissident, during her inaugural tenure as opposition MP in the country’s first post-junta parliament (2012–2016). How did such a totemic figure behave in a legislature dominated by an army-backed party and military-appointed MPs? What legislative tools did she use? The study draws evidence from Burmese-language proceedings of Myanmar’s Union legislature and field interviews. The findings point to a largely marginal, yet disciplined, involvement of Aung San Suu Kyi in legislative business. She neither acted as party whip nor openly criticised government record or took disruptive action in the context of Myanmar’s ‘discipline-flourishing democracy’. Yet, she joined policy debates through the occasional motion, used her position as a catalyst for engaging the government and the world, and successfully marshalled her party to win the next two general elections in 2015 and 2020. The findings have implications for understanding how the strategies of such near-mythical figure can explain subsequent electoral or political (mis)fortunes.
Made available in 2012, short biographies of 166 officers permit examination of the sociological profiles of the Burmese military officers seconded to Myanmar’s Union parliament. Data cover the five sociodemographic variables of gender, age, ethnicity, religion and education, as well as the positions that these officers occupied at the time of their secondment to parliament. These data show that, as a group, the initial cohort of military legislators constitutionally appointed to the two houses of Myanmar’s inaugural “post-junta” Union parliament had a younger and relatively better-educated profile than their elected peers. The most senior officers also had had long careers in the bureaucracy of the armed forces and in its training and educational institutions. Yet as a group they proved far less ethnically and religiously diverse than the civilian representatives, as the substantial majority of them were ethnic Bamar and Buddhist.
Who are the military delegates in Myanmar
- R Egreteau