About fifteen million Burmese votes vanished like water in the desert when the military junta on Saturday announced a referendum on the constitution in May and a general election in 2010.

On May 27, 1990, I cast my vote with about one-third of the country’s population. The majority voted for detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy.

The NLD won more than 80 percent of the vote, a total of 392 of the 485 seats contested in the 492-member assembly.

The junta’s surprise election announcement is the first semi-official declaration that the 1990 election results are nullified—forever gone.

We voted with our hearts, and our hearts were crushed by the generals.

Now we face a new reality, and we must focus on the present situation. 

From the election announcement, I have gained three significant political insights: No real dialogue between the government and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu kyi will take place; the junta clearly rejects any role for the United Nations; and it will rigidly follow its own roadmap to a “disciplined” democracy.  

The announcement exposes the five meetings between Suu Kyi and the junta’s liaison officer in recent months as mere propaganda ploys.

Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years, herself expressed her deep frustration with the ongoing “talks” when she was allowed to meet with her colleagues on January 30.

So, we can forget anything coming out of the talks.

On the UN’s role, in a recent interview, UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari said, “We suggested the appointment of a review commission to look at the constitution.” 

But clearly the regime has rejected inclusion of any opposition parties in the constitutional review process. The junta never had any intention of forming an inclusive group to review the draft constitution, written by handpicked delegates after the 14-year-long National Convention.

A clause in the draft constitution’s guidelines guarantees the military 25 percent of the seats in the country’s parliament, with representatives to be nominated by the commander in chief. The guidelines also allow the military to declare a “state of emergency” to suspend parliament and impose other restrictions.
 
There is little more the UN can say about the reconciliation process. Reconciliation is not going to happen.

Next, there is the junta’s final charade, the “seven-step road map” to democracy, signified by the general election in 2010.

The 1990 election was free and fair. The generals’ National Unity Party, a reincarnation of late dictator Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Program Party which ruled the country with an iron fist until 1988, was soundly defeated. 

In 2010, the junta-backed party will be the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a civilian organization like Golkar in Indonesia.

The USDA is notorious for its attacks on Suu Kyi and her supporters, especially the Depayin attack in 2003 and the 2007 uprising.

The USDA is now organizing local commissions to oversee the referendum voting and the general election process. Sources in Rangoon have told The Irrawaddy the USDA will also select candidates to run in the 2010 elections.

The USDA will control the local election commissions and presumably the voting process itself, while also naming candidates to represent its party. It’s unbelievable.

Meanwhile, the junta has done nothing to inform the people about the contents of the proposed constitution. It confirms the junta isn’t interested in the people’s participation in the process.

How about the general election? Will the NLD, other opposition and ethnic parties be allowed to take part in the elections? It’s anybody’s guess, and there are no guarantees in Burma.

What final insights can we draw from the junta’s recent announcements?

Well, for one: Burmese politics resembles a railway track. One rail is the military government, and the other is the democracy movement—never to join together, never to become one within a strong Burmese nation.

Will the voters whose ballots were simply ignored in 1990 vote in the 2010 elections?

If the elections happen as scheduled, the Burmese people will come out and vote again from the bottom of their hearts.

But they will go to the ballot boxes this time knowing that the generals will not accept defeat in an election, the core principle—after all—of democracy in action.

Their votes might again be like pouring water on the desert.