A Day in the Life
Mandalay | November 8 2015
4:30 a.m.
THE day begins softly, with the steps of young monks making their alms rounds in the quickly fading darkness. A few streetlamps light their path, arranged without pattern in the casual negligence of Myanmar city planning. Above the old Mandalay palace, the moon is just visible beneath Mars, Jupiter and Venus, the only other lights in the sky at this early morning hour.
None of the monks look up at the remarkable astrological alignment. The street dogs pay no heed as they sniff through piles of trash in alleyways. Even the men drinking lapaeye at the corner tea shops bend over to read newspapers, seemingly unconcerned with the rare celestial occasion overhead.
But all around the country, taxi drivers and betel nut sellers and rice farmers — all manner of Myanmar people — are waking up early, tying their longyis tight around their waist and looking up. They are queing outside schools and monasteries and preparing for a different kind of dawn, one that was chosen to correspond with the moon and planets and stars, one that has been awaited for decades.
It is November 8, 2015, and Myanmar prepares to elect a new government.
— -
SUNDAY marked the country’s freely contested first national election in 25 years. For somebody who has lived with democracy as a foregone conclusion his whole life, the experience of covering the day’s events was nothing short of mesmerizing.
People waited for hours to cast their votes, chatting excitedly as they checked their names on printed lists stapled to boards outside polling stations. With the conspicuous exception of military polling stations — where people stood in eerie silence and a heavy trepidation hung in the air — almost all of the polls were scenes of smiles and laughter.
After slipping their rubber stamped voting cards into large plastic tubs, each voter had his or her pinky finger stamped in ink to ensure that they would not try to cheat the system and vote again. The purple stains spread across their skin and inky-pinky pictures began to spread across social media, the honorable badge of someone who had just voted for the first time, ever.
In America, it’s a sticker that falls off your clothes hours later; in Myanmar, it’s something that seeps into your pores.
— -
6:30 a.m.
OUR truck crosses the moat surrounding the Royal Palace, unloading at a checkpoint. I shift my weight nervously, excitedly, as Tatmadaw soldiers examine my press credentials. In cramped handwriting, they etch out the numbers and names of each member of the press caravan I’m in. It’s a painstaking process.
To kill time, to kill nerves, I start snapping photos.
“No photos of soldiers,” the man in charge (I assume, because he’s got the cigarette and the heft and face that says “no”) says in Burmese, pointing at me.
“No photos of soldiers,” my translator says.
I gathered.
After completing the meticulous log of our credential info, they let us in through the east gate of the palace, the House that King Mindon built. A massive sign overhead reads an ominous warning.
Bouncing along in the back of a truck, I spy roads leading off into the heart of the massive military base. Though the old palace is a major tourist destination, most of the grounds surrounding the structure comprise a Tatmadaw base. (If you ever visit, you’ll notice that soldiers along the road to the palace refuse to let you veer off the main thoroughfare.)
With our credentials and military convoy, however, the soldiers do allow us to veer off the main road. We stop at three polling stations to observe the somber proceedings. Whereas most reports from civilian areas include exuberance and excitement at the prospect of democracy, the atmosphere at these Tatmadaw stations is tepid. Presumably, most of the electorate are family to current officers and will vote for the ruling USDP. Maybe they are forced to. Nobody really knows.
At one station, the Chief Commander of Central Command Armed Forces shows up in a black Mercedes. He pulls to a side door, skipping the 400+ people waiting in the hot sun. Accompanied by his wife and entourage, he casts his vote quickly, posing for pictures with a scowl before sneaking out.
Outside, a little boy in line with his mother watches the shiny Mercedes disappear.
As soon as the general and his posse are out of sight, the kid returns to the task at hand — building something new from the dirt.
— -
IN 1990, Senior General Than Shwe surprised the world by holding an open election just two years after violently squashing the 1988 student-led uprising against his own dictatorship. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the new national hero Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, contested and won roughly 80 pc of the seats, trouncing the military establishment. Decades of junta-rule seemed to be over.
But General Than Shwe changed his mind — imagine that! — and refused to recognize the results, instead placing Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. It has been said that Asian politicians are sore losers, and sure enough, another two decades of military rule, cronyism and hopelessness would follow.
After the riots and violence of the 2007 Saffron Revolution, however, the government felt obliged to write a new constitution and hold another election. In 2010, a party of mostly ex-generals (the USDP) won an overwhelming share of the seats in the newly created parliament. Though widely considered a sham, the 2010 election set the stage for a truly democratic government to be elected someday.
International sanctions were lifted, #Obama made a visit and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. Her party re-formed and won 45 out of 47 seats in the 2012 by-election. She went from prisoner to political representative practically overnight.
At the same time, mobile technology became widely available in a country that still used typewriters, and censorship was lifted from newspapers. Foreign investment ballooned, increasing 25-fold from $330 million to $8.1 billion.
And on everyone’s calendar, November 2015 was circled in red — a new election, this time to be contested by ASSK’s NLD party, to decide the future of democracy in Myanmar.
—
12:30
KHIN SU WAI is voting, so I find myself sans translator inside an NLD headquarters north of the moat, sniffing for stories.
U Hein Htet, an executive committee member for the party’s local chapter (who speaks English) tells me some voters have been confused by the electoral process. Not everyone realized they would be casting three votes: one for the Pyithu Hluttaw (US-equivalent to the House of Representatives), one for the Amyotha Hluttaw (US-equivalent to the Senate) and one for the regional hluttaw (US-equivalent to the state houses of representatives). Others are nervous they had not stamped the cards correctly.
“It is not very systematic,” he says.
On the way back to the office, I can’t shake the notion that the city is in hiding. Shops are shuttered and restaurants closed up and down the roads that normally teem with buzzing motorbikes. Nobody sells fruit on the sidewalk. Even the betel nut guys are AWOL from their stations.
The day before I had spoken to a pizza store owner who had said he was closing shop and moving his family out of the country, just in case unrest began. He did not know when he would return.
But there is no shortage of security — at one polling station I hang out with a couple of the 40,000 extra police officers who were hired for today’s election. Many questioned the motive and reasoning behind the decision, which would give a small army of 18–45 year old, jobless men authority over the nation’s most important moment.
The two guys before me are bored out of their mind, lazily stretched out in chairs near the door. When I walk up with camera in hand, they snap to attention and ask me to take their photograph. No guns, no riot sticks — but boy do they look smart in their uniforms. Proud to be a part of the action, they shake my hand and grin from ear to ear.
As I leave, I spot them out of the corner of my eye, reclining back into their posts.
— -
THE months leading up to the election were full of controversies. There were fears over the military’s opaque advance voting procedures, which were conducted outside the realm of international observation. There was speculation of voter disenfranchisement, as the voter lists were packed with errors. Thousands were left off of lists; thousands of deceased people were left on lists.
Would everyone be able to vote before polls closed? Would ethnic states have cards printed in local language, for the minorities who do not read or speak Burmese?
Transportation is nightmarish in much of the country, especially some of the regions worst-hit by the flooding in August. Electricity is spotty, so some worried power outages would delay results collation. General incompetence forced a last minute switch in the tabulation plans, from a specially designed electoral software to good ole’ fashioned Microsoft Excel.
Some candidates were accused of cheating during campaign periods; Generals built schools and new roads in the constituencies they’d be battling for, and Aung San Suu Kyi herself disregarded the rules on when she could begin campaigning. Buddhist nationalist monks went after the opposition party, declaring them “Islamic supporters” who would not protect the Burmese Race and Religion.
It has been fascinating, to cover the Myanmar election while observing the lead up to America’s election across the world. Here, the news has not focused on whether so-and-so actually stabbed someone when he was a kid, or how the leading candidates performed in Trumped up debates; the news has focused on whether rubber stamps would be user-friendly enough for a people who had never voted for.
A good friend of mine explained to me that she visited the websites of all the major US candidates to examine their policy stances and decide who she supports. The Myanmar people I spoke to days before the election did no such research. It wasn’t available to them.
In fact, many did not even know their candidate’s names — only that they would vote for the NLD because they believed it would change their country for the better.
— -
3:45 p.m.
I get a tip that a crowd has gathered at a station not far from my office. Having just finished covering a press appearance from the American ambassador (which was remarkably unremarkable, boring and obvious: “Democracy is cool!” and “We hope this goes better than last time,” was the general theme), I grab Khin Su’s attention and race out the door to check out the action. Polls close at 4 p.m., and the vote count is expected to start immediately after.
As we approach the area, I notice a small squadron of armed soldiers loitering near their truck. This is the first military presence I’ve seen outside the palace walls, and for a moment I hesitate: is this a safe place?
Around the corner I see the ruckus. A crowd of several hundred surrounds a polling station, murmuring in what appears to be the largest game of telephone I’ve ever seen. It takes nearly an hour to get the full story from reputable sources, and when I do it’s almost too fantastical to believe:
During lunchtime, six trucks of unknown persons arrived outside the polling station. Two trucks deposited roughly 50 people into the compound, all of whom successfully voted and slipped away down various alleyways. Two more truckloads attempted the same feat, but by this point the local residents had noticed. They alerted election officials, surrounded the vehicles and demanded answers.
It was revealed that the voters were ineligible, imported from a different township 6 miles north of the city. Most of them worked at a toll gate, and the gate’s operator had sent them, probably in an attempt to sway the vote. These answers were collected from the women who remained in the trucks when the mob formed, some of them crying — all the men had run away.
By the time I get to the scene, the story has spread around the township and everyone has gathered to see what the officials will do about the controversy. Children and young adults have climbed the walls surrounding the station, which is set up in some sort of warehouse, and everyone is clamoring for answers (including myself and a horde of other media members).
In a most unorthodox turn of events, the official in charge announces that the count will be held out loud to assure the township that everything is fair.
The crowd is as shocked as I am, but the chance to witness the firsthand vote counting process adds a whole new element to the already charged atmosphere. Everyone presses forward tightly to hear the first vote. The air is electric.
Dramatically, the official pulls the first vote out of an envelope, flips it around for everyone to see and clears her throat.“NLD” she proclaims.
The people erupt.
She folds it as the international observers and party representatives mark their first tallies on clipboards.
Behind her, boxes of votes wait for their fate.
— -
DEMOCRACY is a loaded word.
Etymology says it comes from Greek origins: “Demos”, meaning the people, and “Kratia”, meaning power or rule. Greek turned to Latin and Latin turned to French, where the word transformed to “démocratie”.
Sometime around the late 16th century, the word emerged in its present form: democracy — the people rule, the people have the power.
During the Cold War, when it became pitted against another word focused on people, democracy transformed. In America, at least, it came to be associated with free market capitalism, and suburban front lawns, and free speech. It became the good guy, fighting the evils of communism across the world, tearing down walls and regimes and statues.
But I think people forget how democracy began in America. A bunch of white guys with land who miraculously defeated their mother country in a highly treasonous rebellion declared that they would form a democratic republic with the words “we the people”, ignoring entirely the majority of the population (who either didn’t own land or a penis or white skin).
It took a century for the black man to acquire the right to vote; it took another fifty years for the woman to acquire the right to vote. The first president was a former general and the next four presidents were all members of the same inner circle. Our sixth president was the son of the second.
My point is, for all the great things American democracy has accomplished, none of them happened overnight. A young democracy does not very much resemble a perfect government — it can be quite messy. Plenty of burgeoning democracies struggle and even relapse: countries like Russia, Venezuela and Thailand come to mind.
Myanmar has technically been a democracy for five years now, and while it has brought some improvements, it has left much to be desired, particularly in the areas of human rights and gender equality.
An NLD win will almost certainly push the country in the right direction, but the military will retain 25 pc of parliament, effectively barring any hope of constitutional amendment (which requires 75 pc + 1 of the vote). Generals will still run the General Administration Department, Border Affairs and the Defense Department, giving them control over much of the government’s inner workings.
And Aung San Suu Kyi — who is prohibited from becoming president due to an absurd constitutional clause — has declared that she will be “above the president” if the NLD wins the presidency. It’s a stance that reeks of autocracy and — dare I say it? — dictatorship. I have no doubt that she will have her people’s best interest at heart, but I do doubt the brash tone with which she is prepared to declare herself the unofficial Ruler of The Land.
With single party rule comes a whole bevy of new problems, and now the people rule. The people have the power… but what will the people do with it?
— -
10 p.m.
TWO massive LED screens outside the Mandalay NLD headquarters show a constant stream of results as observed by NLD representatives at vote counting stations across the region.
Thousands of people mill about in the middle of the road, singing and clapping and waving NLD flags. In a country where the image of Aung San Suu Kyi was once forbidden to be shown in public, her face is everywhere, smiling with vindication from the t-shirts and banners that have sprouted up all over town.
I crouch beneath one of the screens, camera in hand, waiting for the vote count to update so I might snap a photo of the crowd reaction. Many of the supporters see me, smiling and waving at strange foreigner in the middle of all the excitement.
I cannot help but think about how far this country has come as I carefully adjust my stance around electric cables. LED screens, live updating a vote count in a national election… in Myanmar?
Just then, the screen flashes and the faces before me light up. A sea of smartphones rises to capture the count and screams of joy fill the air. It’s another report of landslide NLD victories across Mandalay, matching similar reports from around the country.
Once I’ve taken all the photos I can, I slip out from under the screen and into the heart of the celebration. Men I do not know slap me on the back, and women beam at me from behind the thanaka on their cheeks. Music is pumping out of massive speakers, and as I listen closely, I realize all the songs are NLD campaign tunes. Everyone knows the words.
The official results will not be released for days, but it looks like a rout for the Fighting Peacock, even more so than the 1990 ballot. Young and old continue to flock toward the excitement, dancing in the streets and singing the praises of having participated in government for the first time, ever.
I spy a little girl near the front of the action. She’s wide-eyed, eyes as big as mangoes, as she takes in the wildly unforeseen celebration unfolding around her. I crouch down and watch her, as she, in turn, watches her parents dancing with abandon.
It occurs to me that democracy can’t mean much to her yet — the nitty details of governing, and her own country’s political history, are probably beyond her years.
But she knows something magical has happened today. Intoxicated by the jubilation, she claps her hands along to the beat and shyly smiles when she sees me behind my camera.
She can’t know what changes democracy will bring, only that her entire neighborhood is singing in the streets.
She may not understand democracy, but she can feel hope.
NOTES:
- Here is the link to my story in the newspaper the next day: Joy, relief as Mandalay runs red
- The Myanmar Times had an incredible live blog running all day, to which I contributed four or five short news bites + photos. The blog is still up and searchable by day. Gives a remarkable snapshot of the day’s events.
- At time of posting, the NLD had secured about 80 pc of announced seats in Parliament. Call me Stevie, but that’s a landslide if I ever heard of one.
- The parliament will elect a president in February or March. Until then, the outgoing parliament has one more session, beginning this month. They hope to pass 50 more laws. Here’s to hoping that there’s no funny business.
- These dogs are cute but did not cast votes in the 2015 election. Weren’t on the voter list.
