Guest contributor
Linn Thant
In 2013, Myanmar was being presented to the world as one of Asia’s most promising political success stories.
The generals were no longer speaking primarily the language of dictatorship. They were speaking the language of reform, democracy, economic liberalisation and peace.
Political prisoners had been released. Aung San Suu Kyi and members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) had entered Parliament. Western governments were easing sanctions. Foreign investors were arriving. International leaders were visiting Naypyidaw.
At the World Economic Forum on East Asia, the BBC hosted a debate entitled “Myanmar: What Future?”
More than thirteen years later, that debate is worth watching again.
Not because anyone in 2013 could have predicted every tragedy that would follow, but because the language used by the military-backed government reveals something fundamental about Myanmar’s failed transition.
The military did not deceive the world by pretending that Myanmar was already a perfect democracy.
It did something more sophisticated. It made controlled political liberalisation look like an irreversible transition to democracy.
And the international community wanted to believe it. The promise of an “irreversible” transition.
One of the most striking ideas presented by the government in the 2013 debate was that Myanmar’s reform process was becoming irreversible.
Today, that word is almost painfully ironic. The reforms were reversible. The political opening was reversible.
The elected government was overthrown. Political leaders were imprisoned. Parliament was dismantled. The democratic process was suspended. And the military returned to the centre of political power through force.
But the deeper problem is not simply that the military broke its promises. The deeper problem is that the international community misunderstood what the military’s “reform” actually represented.
The transition was never designed to remove the military from political power.
It was designed to repackage military power in a more acceptable political form. The military did not sell dictatorship. It sold transitions.
This distinction matters. The generals did not tell the world: We intend to rule Myanmar forever.
They said, in effect:
We are changing. Give us time. That was a much more effective strategy.
Myanmar’s military-backed political system permitted a degree of political opening while preserving the institutional foundations of military supremacy.
The 2008 Constitution should have been the warning.
Twenty-five per cent of seats in Parliament were constitutionally reserved for serving military personnel.
The military retained control over key security ministries and extraordinary constitutional powers. The armed forces remained structurally protected from full civilian democratic control.
The contradiction was therefore visible from the beginning. Myanmar could have elections without having civilian supremacy.
It could have opposition politicians without having democratic control over the military.
It could have a civilian government without having a civilian state. And it could have political reform without transferring ultimate political power.
Yet the international community increasingly treated the visible symbols of change as evidence that the underlying system had fundamentally changed. That was the mistake.
Looking democratic is not the same as transferring power
Aung San Suu Kyi was in Parliament. Foreign journalists were entering the country. Western diplomats were visiting Naypyidaw. Sanctions were being lifted. International investment was returning. Myanmar looked different.
But the essential questions remained unanswered: Who controls the armed forces? Who controls the security ministries? Who can amend the Constitution? Who can investigate military abuses? Who can hold military commanders accountable? And, ultimately, who has the power to remove whom?
These are more important questions than whether Parliament contains opposition politicians. Democracy is not simply about the existence of elections.
Democracy is about who controls power after the election.
The military understood this. It did not need to prevent every election. It needed to ensure that no election could fundamentally threaten its institutional position.
The ethnic conflicts exposed the contradiction
Even during the period celebrated as Myanmar’s democratic opening, military conflict continued in ethnic areas. That should have raised a fundamental question.
If Myanmar was genuinely moving toward a democratic federal Union, why was the military still attempting to resolve political conflicts through military force?
The conflicts in Kachin, Shan, Karen, Rakhine and other areas were never simply security problems. They were political struggles over identity, equality, self-determination and the future structure of the Union.
A genuine federal settlement would have required a redistribution of political power. The military was prepared to discuss ceasefires. It was prepared to discuss peace. It was prepared to discuss federalism.
But it was not prepared to surrender its privileged position as the ultimate guarantor of political order.
That distinction would become decisive after 2021.
Rakhine was another warning the world did not fully absorb
The tragedy of the Rohingya did not suddenly appear in 2017. The warning signs were already visible years earlier. The treatment of Rohingya communities exposed a broader institutional problem: a state willing to define an entire population through the language of security, illegality and exclusion rather than guaranteeing equal political and human rights.
The international community had an opportunity to recognise the danger. Instead, the broader narrative of democratic transition often overshadowed the evidence that the state’s institutions remained deeply unequal and unaccountable.
The lesson was clear:
A government cannot be considered democratic simply because it permits opposition politicians to enter Parliament. Democracy is tested by how the state treats minorities, dissenters and politically inconvenient communities.
2020 should have settled the question
The 2020 general election provided perhaps the clearest democratic test.
The NLD won an overwhelming mandate, securing 71 per cent of seats in both houses according to U.N. documentation.
The result demonstrated the continued strength of public support for the party and for the civilian political order. The military did not accept that result.
Instead, it alleged electoral fraud. The allegation became the justification for the events of February 1, 2021. But the subsequent military takeover was not merely a dispute over ballots.
It was a rejection of the principle that the voters’ decision should determine who governs Myanmar. The military chose force over the electoral verdict.
That moment exposed the fundamental weakness of the previous decade’s transition.
2021 did not create the problem. It revealed it.
The coup shocked the world. But the coup did not transform a democratic military into an authoritarian one. It revealed that the military had never accepted the fundamental democratic principle of civilian supremacy.
The military had allowed civilian politicians to govern within limits. It had allowed elections within limits. It had allowed Parliament within limits.
But when the electoral outcome threatened its political interests, those limits became clear. The military intervened. The elected government was removed.
President Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of parliamentarians were detained.
The military-appointed State Administration Council then reconstituted the Union Election Commission and nullified the political consequences of the 2020 election.
The U.N. documented that the coup leadership revoked the accreditation of elected parliamentarians, effectively nullifying the 2020 election results.
The mask had come off.
Then the military repeated the same promise
After the coup, the military again promised a political transition. It promised elections. It promised stability. It promised a return to civilian administration. It promised that its rule was temporary. The vocabulary changed. The strategy did not.
In 2013:
“The reforms are irreversible.”
After 2021:
“We will restore democracy through elections.”
In both cases, the military asked the international community to focus on a promised future rather than the military’s continuing control over the present.
That is why the 2025–2026 sham election is so important. It provides the clearest evidence yet of how the military’s political deception evolved.
The 2025–2026 Sham Election: Democracy Without a Democratic Choice
If the international community wants the clearest evidence of the military’s strategy, it should look at the election held in phases between December 2025 and January 2026.
The military called it a multi-party democratic election. But the fundamental question is not whether ballot papers existed.
It is:
Who was allowed to compete? Who was excluded? Who controlled the electoral process? And who benefited from the rules?
The answers are revealing.
Myanmar’s largest opposition party, the NLD, was absent. The NLD had won the previous two elections by a landslide.
But after the coup, the military-appointed UEC required political parties to re-register under a new political-party law.
The NLD refused to comply, and the military-appointed commission dissolved the party in March 2023.
The U.N. Secretary-General condemned the dissolution as an attempt to undermine democratic institutions and processes.
The result was extraordinary. The military did not defeat the NLD in a new election.
It prevented the NLD from participating in the election.
That distinction matters.
A regime cannot claim democratic legitimacy by organising an election while preventing the country’s principal opposition force from competing.
The U.N reported that the NLD and other major parties were barred from participation, while the military-controlled electoral process took place amid armed conflict, surveillance, restrictions on freedom of expression and movement, and the absence of basic conditions for a credible and free election.
Even more revealingly, the U.N. reported that in 31 townships there was no candidate other than a military-affiliated USDP candidate, meaning those candidates were declared elected without a vote taking place.
That is not competitive democracy.
It is managed political selection.
The USDP “so-called victory”
The military-backed USDP emerged as the dominant party. According to reported official results, the USDP secured 339 of 586 parliamentary seats.
When combined with the 166 seats constitutionally reserved for the military, the military and its allies held approximately 86 per cent of all parliamentary seats.
This is the political architecture the military then presented as the restoration of democracy.
But consider the sequence. The elected government was overthrown. The NLD was dissolved. Its leaders remained imprisoned. Opposition participation was restricted. The electoral process was conducted under military control.
Large areas of the country could not vote because of conflict. The military-backed USDP became the dominant party.
Military appointees retained their constitutionally reserved seats. And the resulting Parliament was then used to establish a new government. The military did not have to defeat its principal opponent at the ballot box.
It removed the principal opponent from the ballot box.
That is the central fact that the international community must not lose sight of.
From coup leader to “President”
The final stage of this process is even more revealing.
On April 3, 2026, the Parliament elected Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as President of Myanmar, five years after he led the military takeover that removed the country’s elected government. He won 429 votes, with the support of the military-dominated Parliament and the military-backed political order.
The symbolism could hardly be clearer.
The man who led the overthrow of the elected government became the head of the state through the political system created after the overthrow.
The military-backed election produced a military-dominated Parliament. That Parliament then elected the military leader who had seized power.
This is not a transition from military rule.
It is a transition from direct military rule to military-controlled constitutional rule.
The uniform may disappear from the official photograph. The institutional power does not. And that is precisely why the international community must distinguish between civilian appearance and civilian authority.
The script has changed. The author has not.
Look at the sequence.
2013:
The military-backed government says reform is irreversible.
2015:
The NLD wins a historic election, but the military retains constitutional political power.
2020:
The NLD wins another overwhelming electoral mandate.
2021:
The military rejects the electoral outcome and seizes power.
2023:
The military-appointed electoral authorities dissolve the NLD.
2025–2026:
The military conducts an election without the NLD and under conditions widely criticised for lacking fundamental democratic safeguards.
2026:
The military-backed USDP becomes the dominant parliamentary force, while military-appointed legislators retain their reserved seats.
April 2026:
The military leader who led the coup becomes President. The entire sequence reveals the real nature of the project. The objective was never simply to abolish democracy.
It was to control the institutions that define what democracy is allowed to look like.
The military’s most powerful weapon has been narrative
When we discuss Myanmar’s military power, we usually think of fighter jets, artillery, troops and weapons.
But the military has another weapon: Narrative.
It calls military control “stability.” It calls repression “security.” It calls a controlled election “democracy.” It calls resistance to military rule “terrorism.” It calls the exclusion of its principal political opponent “legal procedure.”
And it calls the transfer of power from the coup leader to the coup leader himself a “return to civilian government.”
Language matters.
Because once the international community accepts the vocabulary, it can gradually accept the political reality that the vocabulary is designed to legitimise.
This is how legitimacy is manufactured. Not necessarily by convincing everyone. But by making the alternative seem complicated, ambiguous or premature.
The international community must examine its own failure
It would be convenient to say that the Myanmar military alone is responsible for this deception. But that would be incomplete. The military could not have marketed its reform narrative without an international audience willing to believe it.
Governments wanted Myanmar to succeed. Businesses wanted access to the market. Diplomats wanted an end to isolation. International institutions wanted political opening.
And after decades of military dictatorship, everyone wanted a success story. The optimism was understandable. But optimism became a substitute for scrutiny.
The international community too often rewarded announced reform faster than measurable institutional change.
That is the lesson that must now be learned.
A military should not receive democratic legitimacy simply because it announces an election.
A government should not be treated as civilian simply because generals appoint civilians to ministries. And an election should not be considered free and fair simply because ballots are counted.
The question must always be:
Who controls the system before, during and after the vote?
Myanmar cannot be allowed to repeat the same cycle
Myanmar does not need another military-designed transition. It does not need another election in which the most important political choice has already been removed from the ballot.
It does not need another constitution that permanently protects military political power. And it does not need another international bargain in which limited concessions are exchanged for premature legitimacy.
What Myanmar needs is a political settlement based on:
civilian democratic supremacy;
federalism and equality among the Union’s nationalities;
genuine political participation;
protection of fundamental human rights;
accountability for serious international crimes;
and constitutional safeguards preventing any armed institution from again seizing sovereign power.
That is why the struggle of Myanmar’s people today is not simply about restoring the political arrangement that existed before February 2021. It is about building a Union in which February 2021 can never happen again.
The real question is: who owns the Union?
This is the question that the international community should now ask.
Not:
Who does the military say has won the election?
But:
Who has the right to determine Myanmar’s political future?
Is Myanmar a country in which one military institution stands above society and decides the limits of political freedom?
Or is it a Union in which its people and its diverse nationalities determine their political future through democratic and federal institutions?
That is the real choice.
And it is why Myanmar’s current struggle cannot be reduced to a contest between the military and one political party.
The NLD’s exclusion is important because it demonstrates how the military eliminates electoral competition.
But the deeper issue is much larger.
The people of Myanmar are demanding a political system in which no military institution can stand above the Constitution, Parliament, elected government or people.
That is the unfinished democratic question. The question from 2013 still has an answer
The BBC asked in 2013:
“Myanmar: What Future?”
At the time, the answer seemed obvious. Myanmar appeared to be moving from military rule toward democracy. Thirteen years later, we can see the illusion more clearly.
The military did not surrender political power. It managed political liberalisation.
It allowed democracy to operate within boundaries it controlled. And when the voters attempted to move beyond those boundaries, the military intervened.
The military’s greatest deception was therefore not a single lie.
It was a political architecture of half-truths. It showed the world elections without civilian supremacy.
It showed Parliament without military subordination. It showed political reform without constitutional transformation. It showed ceasefires without a federal settlement.
And finally, it showed an election without the country’s principal opposition party. Then, after all of this, the leader of the coup became President. The sequence is the evidence.
The script has changed. The author has not.
The international community once heard that Myanmar’s democratic transition was “irreversible.” History has now demonstrated that the military’s political role was the thing it intended to preserve.
The question today is therefore not whether the military can be trusted to lead Myanmar toward democracy. The evidence of the past thirteen years is already before us. The real question is whether the international community will make the same mistake again.
Myanmar’s people do not need another promise from the generals. They need the international community to recognise a much simpler principle:
No military institution should stand above the people.
No coup leader should be able to overthrow an elected government and later turn that seizure of power into a presidential mandate.
No election should be used to manufacture legitimacy after the principal opposition has been removed from the ballot.
And no promise of reform should ever again be called “irreversible” until the people themselves—not the military—possess the power to make it so.
In 2013, the world was asked to believe that Myanmar was becoming a democracy.
In 2026, the evidence tells us what that transition really was.
The military did not build a democracy. It built a system in which military power could survive behind the appearance of democracy.
The task before Myanmar now is to build something the generals cannot control: a genuine federal democratic Union in which political power belongs to the people, the nationalities, and institutions accountable to them—not to the men who carry the guns.
Linn Thant is the Prague-based Representative of the National Unity Government (NUG) of Myanmar and a former democracy activist. He writes on Myanmar affairs, geopolitics, democracy, and international relations.
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