Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi may be on cusp of victory -- of sorts

She is 70 now and finally seems to be on the cusp of her biggest victory in nearly three decades of fighting what once was among the world’s most repressive military dictatorships.

A long way from the years of house arrest that made her an international symbol -- when listening to the BBC on shortwave radio was one of her few links to the outside world -- Aung San Suu Kyi has crisscrossed Myanmar before a landmark election Sunday and been greeted by adoring throngs in rice-farming communities and ramshackle cities.

“I believe in her and respect her because she has sacrificed,” said Kyaw Oo, a mechanic in Yangon, the largest city. Like many fans, he called her “Daw Suu,” meaning “Aunt Suu.”

Yet even if Suu Kyi’s party prevails in what is expected to be the freest election in decades in the country also known as Burma, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist cannot become president. And her party would not be assured of control over the parliament or key levers of power.

Democracy is a nascent concept in Myanmar, and despite reforms that have produced a surprisingly vibrant parliamentary election campaign -- with more than 32 million eligible voters, and nearly 100 parties blanketing the country with banners and rallies -- the military remains firmly in charge.

The army is guaranteed a quarter of parliamentary seats and still appoints the heads of the most important government agencies. The 2008 army-written constitution bars anyone with a foreign spouse or foreign children from becoming president, a clause that Suu Kyi believes was written with her in mind, given that her late husband was British, as are their two children.

The president will be selected from among candidates put forth by the military and the two houses of parliament. But in a news conference Thursday at her lakeside home in Yangon, Suu Kyi sounded defiant, saying she would hold a position “above the president” and run the government if her National League of Democracy party wins.

“It’s a very simple message. I will lead the government,” Suu Kyi said.

The blunt message, delivered in clipped, Oxford-accented English, marked a direct challenge to the military and the Union Solidarity and Development Party, the party of ex-generals that has led the country since 2011. That year, the army began ceding some authority to the military-aligned civilian government, freeing political prisoners and relaxing censorship laws.

The Obama administration, eager to gain a new strategic partner in Southeast Asia and counter China’s growing influence, rewarded the moves by lifting many of the toughest U.S. sanctions that had made Myanmar one of the most isolated economies. Investors rushed in, transforming Yangon, a city of moldering colonial-era buildings punctuated by the spires of centuries-old Buddhist pagodas, into a traffic-clogged maze of cranes, upscale hotels and brightly lighted cafes.

Since 2012, the United States has spent more than $200 million in aid to Myanmar, according to the State Department.

But many of the reforms have stalled or been reversed.

Discrimination against minorities has worsened, particularly against Muslims, more than 1 million of whom have been denied voting rights in the upcoming vote. They have been subjected to harsh new religious laws and denounced as “dogs” or worse by hard-line Buddhist monks who appear to have the military’s tacit support.

The army has escalated clashes with ethnic rebel groups that declined to sign a national cease-fire last month, prompting the cancellation of voting in some northern border areas that officials say are too unstable, or are controlled by insurgents.

A year ago, President Obama made his second visit to Myanmar and urged the government to rededicate itself to reforms. But analysts said that by then the U.S. was left with little leverage against the generals, who control large chunks of the economy, including the all-important mining sector, and have benefited mightily from the easing of sanctions.

“I think the U.S. moved too quickly,” said Bo Kyi, who spent seven years in jail under the military government and co-founded the Assistance Assn. for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group.

“While Burma is changing, it is still an authoritarian state -- a constitutional authoritarian state. So we cannot expect too much from this election. The army will still be the most powerful institution in the country.”

Despite promises by the generals to free all prisoners of conscience, Bo Kyi’s organization said that 96 political prisoners remained jailed at the end of September, a greater number than a year earlier. Nearly 500 others were awaiting trial on political charges.

Last month, two people were jailed for Facebook posts that the military found offensive -- one depicting a man stepping on a picture of the commander in chief, another that likened the army’s uniforms to a sarong worn by Suu Kyi.

President Thein Sein, an ex-general who is believed to be seeking to retain the office, said the military-aligned government has brought stability and economic growth. Thein Sein’s USDP and Suu Kyi’s party are the only two with national reach, although in Yangon it is difficult to find anyone who professes to support the governing party.

The last time Kyaw Oo, the mechanic, cast a ballot was in 1990, when he voted for Suu Kyi’s party in a nationwide election that it won in a landslide. But the generals ignored the result and kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for 15 years.

“We are not sure what will happen this time,” Kyaw Oo said. “We don’t know whether the army will play dirty.”

In 2012, after Suu Kyi was freed, the party swept by-elections and she won a seat in parliament. Now a politician, she has disappointed some supporters with her refusal to speak out more forcefully against the government’s anti-Muslim policies, particularly its brutal treatment of the Rohingya people, who have been denied citizenship and banished to displacement camps because they are viewed as illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

An estimated 5% to 10% of Myanmar’s 53 million people are Muslim, but neither the governing party nor Suu Kyi’s party nominated any Muslim candidates. The opposition’s calculation, analysts said, was to avoid antagonizing the radical Buddhist monks who retain a large following in rural Myanmar.

The Obama administration, which cultivated close ties to Suu Kyi, has expressed muted frustration over the Nobel laureate’s failure to advocate for minority rights.

“Regrettably, this is not an environment where any political leaders seem prepared to step up and to speak out forcefully in defense of the rights of the Muslim minority and particularly of the Rohingya,” Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of State for East Asia, told a congressional hearing last month.

But Myo Win, a Muslim activist in Yangon, said Muslims were prepared to support Suu Kyi’s party anyway.

“We know she’s not really the human rights protector that we thought, but we have no choice,” he said. “If we don’t vote NLD, who else is there?”

Twitter: @SBengali

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