Burma will hold its first elections in two decades later this year, but the process has already divided the country’s opposition.
Some plan to boycott what they see as a democratic travesty, while others believe the poll offers the best chance for change after decades of brutal stasis under the ruling junta.
The election, scheduled to be held on November 7, is the culmination of a plan by General Than Shwe, 77, who has run the country since 1992, to establish “discipline-flourishing democracy” in Burma.
It is widely seen as an attempt by Gen Than Shwe to ease his path into retirement, with his family and fortune safe from any democratic backlash.
On its own, the heavily criticised election cannot remove the generals who have ruled Burma for almost four decades.
The constitution – passed in a 2008 referendum that bore the hallmarks of government manipulation – guarantees the military 25 per cent of the seats in parliament, gives them amnesty for past crimes, and allows the generals to suspend the constitution when they see fit.
The generals have also taken steps to neutralise their most potent rival: Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel laureate, is barred from standing and remains under house arrest. The National League for Democracy, the party that Ms Suu Kyi founded, would have had to expel her in order to take part in the elections, and chose dissolution instead.
In deciding not to contest the elections, the NLD – which won a landslide victory in the country’s last polls, in 1990, though the results were later annulled – has potentially weakened the opposition’s ability to create a united front against the military.
But most of the NLD leaders are in their 70s and 80s, and, after 20 years of fruitless searching for an accommodation with the regime, entrenched disagreement has made compromise all but impossible.
Their departure is forcing a younger generation of opposition activists to step forward to form new parties. It is hoped this generation might have greater flexibility in how they frame their relationship with the generals.
The NLD’s position has struck a chord with those who believe that the election laws are flawed and, as a result, plan to boycott the vote.
“Without freedom of registration, without freedom of assembly, how can we hope that change will happen?” asks Naing Aung, secretary-general of the Forum for Democracy in Burma, from exile in Thailand.
He believes the participation of opposition parties will only lend legitimacy to a regime that continues to hold democracy hostage. “Without a credible opposition, this parliament cannot be legitimate,” he says.
But many opponents of the regime have decided to take part despite the odds stacked against them.
They believe that the elections offer the best chance to undermine the status quo.
“It looks quite bleak. But if there is a bit of freedom and fairness in the actual vote, then the opposition groups might win a sizeable chunk of the seats because the hatred factor is important. After years of military rule, [the junta] is clearly hated by everyone,” says Aung Naing Oo, a leader of the 1988 student revolt who is now a Thailand-based political analyst.
Although the election was expected for this year, the speed with which Gen Than Shwe is rushing through poll preparations has caught many opposition parties by surprise.
The government’s ruling that the 40 contesting parties submit their lists of candidates by August 30 has left the opposition scrambling to find candidates and the $500 (€385, £320) deposit – more than the current gross domestic product per capita – they need to stand.
“They thought that they would have at least two months to submit their lists of candidates and find the money, but now they have only two weeks,” says Mr Aung Naing Oo.