Change in Burma – too little too late?

Burma’s rulers are gradually coming to terms with democracy. On Sunday, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is holding its first national conference at which it is expected to elect new leaders and declare that it has become “a party of the people”.

The rebranding is timely. The next General Election is scheduled for 2015 and it is widely expected that the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, will win most of the seats that are open contests (under the constitution the military still has the right to appoint 25 per cent of members in both the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament).

But can this transformation honestly be affected? The USDP was originally the political arm of the military junta that ruled the country for almost half a century. Officially it has 16 million members, but just how many of these are true party faithful rather than opportunists relying on Government patronage is highly problematical.

The USDP contested the last election in 2010 winning around three quarters of the seats, but it was a poll boycotted by the NLD after many of its candidates were deemed ineligible. Now the NLD is back in the ring and recently swept 43 of 44 seats in by-elections.

As the party in power, the USDP has some breathing space to popularise itself with the electorate, but that will be no easy task in a country that lags well behind its south-east Asian neighbours in economic development and is still riven with unrest among its many ethnic minorities.

Some observers feel the key lies in whether significant numbers of the six million Burmese who live overseas can be tempted back to help with national reconstruction. Htun Aung Gyaw, a former student leader who has just revisited the country after decades in exile, says there is a vast pool of talent living in various countries of the world, including Australia, who could make a major contribution.

“Burma needs skills from all fields which exiles could easily provide. The bureaucracy is very weak, every sector has untrained people, but to encourage exiles to return, the Government must issue a blanket amnesty,” Aung Gyaw said in an interview.

And that may be a tall order for a Government which in the past has been highly suspicious of any views and opinions that ran counter to its own. While progress is being made, it is unlikely that a few statements and slogans at a single conference will represent real change.

Most likely the Burmese will have to wait until 2015 before beginning that process in earnest.