It's been a year to remember. After two decades of waiting, Burma finally had an election in 2010, a year that will be largely defined by that event. But on other fronts, too, the year shaped up to be an interesting and, quite possibly, crucial one for the country's future.

The Nov. 7 vote turned out, as most observers expected, to be an anticlimax. After effectively excluding all of Burma's major democratic leaders by barring convicted “criminals” from taking part in the election, the regime allowed less threatening would-be rivals to form parties that stood little chance of winning.

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“We cannot expel Aung San Suu Kyi and others who are or have been imprisoned under this corrupt and unfair legal system. Without them, our party would be nothing,” said Win Tin, another of the party's stalwarts, who himself had spent nearly two decades behind bars.

The fallout of this fateful decision was the break-up of the party, with a faction led Dr Than Nyein opting to form a new party, the National Democratic Front (NDF), to try its luck on election day. In the end, it walked away with just 16 of the more than 1,100 seats up for grabs. The junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), predictably, won by a landslide, claiming nearly 77 percent of the seats in the two houses of the national parliament and in the state and regional assemblies.

Other parties, meanwhile, fared better than the NDF, but remained far behind the USDP. The pro-military National Unity Party came in a very distant second with a total of 63 seats, while the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party took 57 and the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party won 35. The All Mon Region Democracy Party tied the NDF with 16 seats. Soon after the election, all three of these ethnic-based parties received permission to start their own trading companies, in a move likely intended to ensure their cooperation with the new government, which must be formed sometime early next year.

Elsewhere on the ethnic front, the prospect of returning to business as usual looked less promising. As the rest of the country was going through the motions of an election designed to maintain the status quo, Brigade 5 of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) livened things up by seizing control of Myawaddy, a major crossing-point on the Thai-Burmese border. The next day, the Burmese army moved in to reclaim its lost territory, and the ensuing clashes forced about 200,000 refugees to flee to safety in Thailand.

The flare-up of hostilities in Myawaddy came after months of tensions in the area. The border crossing had been closed for months by the time fighting broke out, following a June 8 visit to Myawaddy by Brig-Gen Zaw Min, the chairman of the Karen State Peace and Development Council. Although the regime claimed that the closure was due to the construction of an embankment on the Thai side of the Moei River separating the two countries, many observers saw it as an exercise in muscle-flexing by the junta, aimed at forcing the DKBA to transform itself into a border guard force (BGF) under Burmese military command. Although the main body of the DKBA complied, Brigade 5 refused, joining the ranks of other ethnic cease-fire groups that continue to resist the BGF scheme. As 2011 approaches, the possibility of resumed hostilities along Burma's borders remains the greatest immediate threat facing the country. 

But the specter of an imminent outbreak of all-out war was not the only thing that darkened the horizon in 2010. On Oct. 22, Cyclone Giri, a Category III-level tropical storm, wreaked destruction on the Arakan coast, killing hundreds of people and leaving around 200,000 homeless. Two months later, problems with getting aid to the region persist, despite lessons that should have been learned after Cyclone Nargis inflicted much greater devastation on the Irrawaddy delta in May 2008.

As was the case two years ago, local civil society organizations have played a major role in bringing relief to the victims of Giri, once again outshining the efforts of government agencies. The contribution of these community groups, whose members include people from all  walks of life—from activists and artists to Buddhist monks and businessmen—has won growing recognition from international donors and aid agencies, who have come to see them as an invaluable source of the local knowledge they need to implement their projects. 

(Coincidentally, Cyclone Giri struck the day after the regime unveiled the country's new yellow, green and red flag, which harked back to the days of Japanese rule in Burma, when the country had a similarly colored flag with a peacock in the center. On the new flag, however, a star replaces the peacock, which since 1988 has been a symbol of the NLD and Burma's pro-democracy movement.)

If there was an award for Burma's busiest man of the year, it would probably go to junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe. In the months leading up to the election, he went on something of a charm offensive, visiting a number of friendly capitals, including New Delhi, Vientiane and Beijing, to make sure he could count on his regional allies in the face of the inevitable outcry that would come from the West once it became clear that the vote would be anything but free and fair.

With growing economic ties between Burma and its neighbors, Than Shwe has little reason to fear that his foreign friends will abandon him now. But that doesn't mean that all is rosy between the regime and its closest allies—especially China, which has grown increasingly concerned about the restiveness of ethnic armed groups based along the Sino-Burmese border. Under pressure to join the junta's BGF scheme, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the United Wa State Army and the National Democratic Alliance Army are all bracing for the collapse of their cease-fire agreements with the regime. Most ominously, in October, Burma's state-run press referred to the KIA as “insurgents,” a designation that had not been used since the group agreed to stop fighting in 1994.

When he wasn't traveling abroad to shore up regional support for his regime, Than Shwe was busy spending much of his time and energy trying to ensure the loyalty of a new generation of up and coming generals. While he himself continues to hold on to his position as commander in chief, many other leading generals were forced to resign to take up positions as politicians in next year's new “civilian” government. This left openings for younger officers eager to rise through the ranks, while effectively sidelining other senior military men who might challenge his rule after the regime officially hands over power. And with 25 percent of the seats in the new parliament going to military appointees, he will also have ample opportunity to exercise his patronage there, too. This should be enough to guarantee that, whether or not he becomes president, Than Shwe will remain as the “senior general” who calls all the shots.

Meanwhile, the military continues to consume most of Burma's wealth, with much of the rest of it going directly to Than Shwe and his closest and most trusted associates. According to the junta’s Ministry of Commerce, Burma’s export earnings from natural gas in the first eight months of this year were estimated at US $4 billion, while jade exports for the same period were $1.1 billion, with even more sold at the Naypyidaw gems fair in November.

Of these billions, precious little went to spending on health, education or anything else that the country so desperately needs. According to Sean Turnell, a professor of economics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, the junta is hiding Burma’s gas earnings through its dual exchange rate system. Under the name of “privatization,” junta cronies are also laying claim to anything worth owning—from gas stations to hydropower plants, cinemas to telecommunications companies, factories and warehouses to airlines.

It remains an open question how much of the regime's growing military budget is being spent on non-conventional weapons. Analysts believe that many of Burma's future military purchases may come from North Korea. According to a report by UN experts, North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile technology and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas criminal networks to circumvent UN sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency has asked Burma to be allowed to visit a number of suspect nuclear sites and facilities.

Against this grim backdrop of greed and growing tensions, the most positive development of the year was Suu Kyi's release from house arrest a week after the election, although that is small consolation in a country that still has some 2,200 political prisoners behind bars.

But this is a time to be hopeful, so perhaps we can take some comfort in seeing the eagerness with which Burma's young welcomed Suu Kyi's return to the national political stage, and the youthful exuberance of Suu Kyi herself, despite her long years of isolation. No sooner did she reappear than she began reaching out to the world and her fellow Burmese, sometimes using technology that didn't even exist the last time she was free.

Let us hope, then, that 2010 will be the last year of Burma's era of military-scripted politics and that 2011 will usher in new possibilities, some of which are still beyond our imagining.