(MintPress)-The United States was “encouraged” on Wednesday after Myanmar’s president, U Thein Sein, invited American and European observers to monitor by-elections on April 1, marking the country’s latest step towards democratic reforms after decades of military dictatorship.
However, the disputed efficacy of international election observer missions and Myanmar’s continued human rights abuses against various Burmese ethnic groups may suggest that Sein’s friendly democratic gestures may be a ploy to persuade western nations to quickly lift harmful economic sanctions.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced on Tuesday that representatives from each of its 10 member states have also been invited to observe the April 1 parliamentary elections in Myanmar.
At stake are 48 parliamentary seats. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the opposition National League for Democracy, will be running for Parliament after being held under house arrest for almost two decades. The National League for Democracy won the 1990 elections but was not allowed to take office. The party boycotted 2010 elections, claiming they were neither free nor fair.
Election Observers Violating State Sovereignty?
Election observers can play a vital role in strengthening the electoral process in various countries by providing assessment of election capabilities and fairness. Although observers cannot prevent fraud, it is believed that by recording fraud, observers can better hold individuals accountable.
However, many criticisms can be made against election observers for interfering in state sovereignty and injecting bias political agendas into election outcomes. An African Affairs report found that in many African countries, “International observers are depicted as an integral element in liberalism’s global agenda to impose an inappropriate model of Western democracy on African societies.”
In 2009, the International Republican Institute, an organization that receives funding from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, sent a delegation to observe the elections in Honduras after previously being accused of supporting the overthrow of democratically elected presidents in Haiti and Venezuela.
The IRI has also been criticized for promoting pro-western ideologies among Egyptian political parties and protesters in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, which resulted in the arrest of several IRI members in Egypt earlier this year.
In September, Zimbabwe refused to allow international observers access to elections at all. The Insider reported that “According to a diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, Mutasa [secretary for administration] said that the same day the US government condemned a Zimbabwean by-election in Zengeza during which one person had been killed, it accepted the results of a Nigerian election in which more than 200 were reportedly killed.”
Activists in Sudan also condemned international election observers, saying “These missions lend the appearance of legitimacy to what has been proven to be a deeply flawed elections process and the presumed re-election of a man who is internationally wanted for war crimes in a vote that is neither free nor fair.”
Another major criticism of election observer missions is that there are simply not enough observers to accurately cover all voting centers during elections or record the fraud that occurs prior to election day. Additionally, since observers come from a variety of countries, their conclusions often tend to contradict each other, which can hinder the legitimacy of the missions.
A study by the Universitas Osloensis found that international election observers “tend to let their political role…override their technical role, that involves impartially observing and reporting whether an election is free and fair or not, secondly, they lack uniform international standards that define what constitutes a free and fair election and thirdly, the extent of coverage of the electoral process and the size of the missions is inadequate compared to the size of the country and complexity of the electoral exercise.”
Making Strides Towards Democracy
The international community has applauded the recent steps Myanmar has taken toward greater openness after being long secluded under control of a military junta since 1962. But years of international sanctions have weakened the generals’ grip on power.
Champion of the opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi, was recently released from almost two decades under house arrest in 2010, and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s election campaign speech was broadcast on state television for the first time earlier this month.
In another show of goodwill, the government of Myanmar signed a cease-fire agreement in January with ethnic Karen rebels, whose struggle for autonomy is one of the worst civil wars the country has experienced since gaining independence six decades ago.
In the same month, the United States agreed to reinstate full diplomatic relations with the country’s new civilian government, which came to power in 2011, after hundreds of political prisoners were released.
Not everyone is convinced of Myanmar’s recent streak of pro-democracy activities though. Deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, Elaine Pearson reports that “The Burmese army is committing unchecked abuses in Kachin State while the government blocks humanitarian aid to those most in need.”
While democratic reforms stretch across lowland Myanmar, the northern state of Kachin is being attacked by the Burmese army, which has left 75,000 people displaced so far.
“There’s still a long way to go before the people of Burma, particularly those in conflict areas, benefit from recent promises of reform,” Pearson warned. “The international community should not become complacent about the serious human rights violations still plaguing Burma.”
Although the upcoming April elections are a significant step towards democracy for the historically repressed country, elections are in no way a threat to the ruling party’s hold on power. Of the more than 600 seats in parliament, only 48 are being contested.
The next general election is not scheduled until late in 2015, and there is no telling whether international observers will be invited. As for now, elections may be a distraction to allow for lifted international sanctions while mass human rights abuses continue in other parts of the country.
Source: MintPress