Photo – AFP
(This English Column is the ISP’s translation of the original Burmese version published on February 04, 2025. Read the original Burmese Column here.)
For most people in Myanmar, February 1st is remembered as the anniversary of the coup. It is also the date on which the third term of the Union Parliament (Hluttaw) was meant to begin.
Instead of allowing parliament to convene and a government to be formed in accordance with the election results, the Myanmar Armed Forces launched a coup. It seized power, disregarding the votes of millions. Parliament is not merely a building; it is the source of checks and balances. It is the place that constitutes and endorses the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, as well as independent institutions such as the Constitutional Tribunal, the Union Election Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, and the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Had parliament been allowed to convene and a new government formed, civilian politicians would have taken precedence over generals in the Union’s order of precedence. That prospect alone was enough to make the institution intolerable to a commander-in-chief intent on keeping all three pillars of power in his own hands.In the four years since the coup, the junta leader has toured the country but has conspicuously avoided the parliament in Naypyitaw. The Senior General, who has often worked from the Presidential Palace—separated from the Hluttaw complex only by a fence—has never set foot in the parliament compound. He has had no reason to. On January 31, 2022, at the one-year mark of the state of emergency, he had a chance to announce that an election would be held within six months. He simply chose not to take it.
An election and a functioning parliament would, in principle, force him to give up at least some of these positions, and with them, his current “one-man show”.
Coup-makers and the people’s parliament sit uneasily together, almost like a monk and a comb. General Ne Win’s 1962 coup shut Myanmar’s parliamentary doors for nearly half a century. Under Senior General Than Shwe, the “2008 model” of Myanmar politics was crafted, and parliaments reappeared in 2011. But in a country conditioned by decades of military rule, a deep “allergy” to checks and balances soon resurfaced—in tensions between President Thein Sein’s administration and the Hluttaw led by Thura Shwe Mann, and later between the parliament dominated by members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the military.
Although the NLD party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won the 2020 general election, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing refused to allow the third parliament to convene. The doors of what is supposed to be “the voice of the people” were kept firmly shut. Millions of citizens have since been plunged into crisis; the closing of that door helped push the country onto a path of armed resistance, heavy casualties, and widespread suffering.
The junta leader has indicated that an election will be held in 2025. The opposition has rejected the idea outright. Yet it is far from clear that he himself is genuinely eager to go ahead. If an election were actually held, he would have to share some of the powers he currently monopolises. Rival centres of authority would inevitably emerge. Of all the actors in the system, he stands to lose the most.
Today, the junta leader serves as Acting President, Chairman of the State Administration Council, Prime Minister, and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services. An election and a functioning parliament would, in principle, force him to give up at least some of these positions—and with them, his current “one-man show”. To understand why, one needs only look back to the Thein Sein era, often described as a quasi-civilian government: even under a tightly controlled constitutional order, the existence of an elected parliament created new political dynamics and constrained the military’s scope for undisputed personal command.
For some observers, an election is framed as a possible exit ramp for the junta leader. But even then, one has to ask: Does he truly want to open the doors of parliament? And more to the point, does he dare?
Agga is an analyst on Myanmar’s political and military affairs.