They, the people of Myanmar

Imperfect democracy: Election officials guard a mobile ballot in Yangon for early voting ahead of the Nov 8 general election amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Reuters

WHILE the attention of the world remains riveted on an election taking place this past week, another election of significance to this region will take place today, Nov 8, in Myanmar, which was conditionally welcomed into the comity of democratic nations five years ago.

At the threshold, it was known that Myanmar was giving itself a flawed democratic structure for it yielded to its military a quarter of the parliamentary seats and accepted a condition where the country’s best known leader, Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi would be forced to play a constricted role because of a constitutional bar on her becoming de facto head of government.