Myanmar's Rocky Road to Democracy

A year-and-a-half after taking office, Myanmar’s government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy have compiled a poor record. To be sure their room for manoeuvre has been constrained by the 2008 constitution, written by the previous military regime. The main source of disappointment, however, is the poor decisions over issues that are under the NLD’s control. Suu Kyi’s government has had no discernible strategy or clear policies of dealing with the country’s multiple ills. The most consequential mistake she has made was to expend much time and political capital on an issue – the ethnic peace process – that is both enormously complex and out of her control. Even more disappointingly for champions of human rights, she and her government have failed to speak out on behalf, let alone stop the institutionalized persecution, of the Rohingya community.