YANGON—A number of dissidents opposed to Myanmar's harsh military regime plan to challenge the government in elections expected this year, even as new rules force many of the country's best-known activists to sit on the sidelines.Residents of Yangon, Myanmar, stopping last week to read newspapers giving details of new polling laws, although the military regime hasn't yet set a date for the election, the nation's first since 1990.
These dissidents, informally called the Third Force, are seeking to bridge the gap between Myanmar's two main political factions: the military, which has turned Myanmar into a police state since taking over in 1962, and the National League for Democracy, the severely weakened opposition movement led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest.
The movement is made up of younger activists who believe it is possible to reform Myanmar from within its existing political system, and some veteran dissidents, including some whose families held government posts before the takeover.
The opposition NLD won Myanmar's last elections in 1990, but the junta ignored the result and imprisoned many senior leaders, including Ms. Suu Kyi. NLD officials now are debating whether to boycott the next election—whose date hasn't been announced—because they doubt the vote will be fair.
Many residents are hoping more viable candidates will jump into the race. It is too early to know how many candidates are set to participate. The regime only just last week approved eligibility rules so parties could begin registering. But at least a half-dozen non-NLD dissidents, who might be considered Third Force candidates, have signaled intentions to run so far, according to the candidates and exile news outlets in India and Thailand, including Irrawaddy magazine and Mizzima news agency.
They include the daughter of a former prime minister and several other longtime Yangon activists, including Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein, a 62-year-old dissident who ran unsuccessfully in the 1990 elections. Although Ms. Kyaw Nyein's organization is known as the Democratic Party, she says she and her supporters are one of the groups given the Third Force label.
"Some people call us that," says Ms. Kyaw Nyein, whose father was once deputy prime minister, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We are not with the NLD, we are not with the government. We are in the middle."
Speaking publicly about politics is unusual in Myanmar, where activists are often subject to prison sentences and torture, according to international human-rights groups. Ms. Kyaw Nyein says that while she has "scars" from years of harassment, including a three-year prison term in the 1990s, she is speaking out now because she believes the country can make some headway if people embrace the election.
"A lot of people have come to understand that there is no point fighting with the present regime," she said. "If there is an election and we declare we don't want to take part, [the military] will continue with their plans" and rule uncontested.
Diplomatic staff from the U.K. and other European countries met recently with several of the new candidates, and say they could represent "an important part of the transition to democracy" in Myanmar, one Western diplomat said.
Still, the impact of the Third Force is yet to be determined, and it is unclear how popular those candidates ultimately will prove to be.
"It isn't obvious to me that these Third Force politicians have constituencies," another diplomat added.
The "Third Force" label is used by locals to describe a variety of activists and organizations, including some with potentially competing ideologies and civil society groups. It is difficult to pin down precise political agendas. What's more, many Third Force activists are unwilling to speak publicly out of fear of persecution. Gatherings of more than five people in Myanmar are technically illegal.
But backers of the movement appear to share one common belief. Unlike Ms. Suu Kyi, who is widely perceived as taking a hard line against compromising with Myanmar's military, they generally believe there is significant room to negotiate with the regime in pursuit of gradual change, according to interviews with activists and others familiar with the country's political landscape.
Among the ideas some are pursuing: Liberalization of the rice trade in Myanmar, once the world's largest rice exporters before hit with years of stagnation due to weak investment and government restrictions. Some of the activists think they can convince Myanmar's next government to allow a bigger role for private traders and investors, which could energize the sector and boost rural incomes.
Third Force adherents also point to other Asian countries, such as South Korea and Indonesia, that endured military or one-party dominance for years, but evolved into multiparty democracies. They note that as many as 75% of the seats in Myanmar's new parliament will be filled by civilians, and that it is worth trying to grab some of them.
Ms. Kyaw Nyein has been allowed to discuss her candidacy openly—it remains unclear as to why—but says she has had to confine political meetings to small groups, or informal gatherings. Many dissidents hope the government will allow larger meetings once the election gears up.
As for the vote itself, she says, "I can only hope it will be fair."
The government is planning the election as part of a "road map to democracy" to bolster its standing internally and internationally. But critics, including many NLD members, say the regime has no intention of loosening its grip. These dissidents see the entire election process as invalid, and fear that participation is playing into the hands of the regime. To them, the very emergence of these new candidates is deeply upsetting. A boycott, they say, would force the regime—regarded as one of the most oppressive in the world—to come to the negotiating table if it wants its election to be recognized by the outside world.
Efforts to reach the government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, were unsuccessful.
It may be hard, if not impossible, for any opposition group to be effective amid Myanmar's restrictions on speech and other liberties. Still, the movement has captured the attention of many Myanmar experts around the world, including some who believe the only way forward is for a new opposition—with less baggage from years of fighting with the regime—to emerge.
The election "is a fraud, but at the same time I think it is likely to lead to something," says Donald Seekins, a Myanmar scholar at Meio University in Okinawa, Japan. "It's not the intention of the generals necessarily to make it more pluralistic, but I think that is going to be the effect."
Skepticism, however, deepened last week when the regime released new election rules that bar the participation of political prisoners, including Ms. Suu Kyi and other NLD members. The rules also require parties to register within 60 days and be approved by an election commission—something NLD has yet to do.
"Yes, there are some non-NLD people who are preparing to register their parties, but I hope they change their mind," says Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a Washington group. "They will have no chance to survive in this sham election. This election should be boycotted."
Ms. Kyaw Nyein would disagree. She says she and several family members, including her parents, her husband and two brothers, have served time in prison.
"I have been bullied and harassed" for years, she says in her interview. "Why do we continue this fight? We've got to negotiate with the army for the sake of the people and the country."
Source :http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909804575123400340150366.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_World
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