Guest contributor
Ohn Nyo
In 2010, the military junta in Naypyidaw was immersed in a carefully engineered plan to reshape its grip on power. Senior generals were quietly preparing to change their military uniforms for civilian attire, stepping into newly designed parliamentary roles.
This transformation was not a spontaneous shift but the culmination of more than a decade of planning, codified in the military’s 2008 Constitution—the very document passed in the shadow of Cyclone Nargis, a devastating storm that killed over 850,00 people, according to a previous junta’s data, and caused public suffering and devastation that rendered political resistance nearly impossible.
Although observers at the time predicted that the junta might need to loosen its hold due to internal constraints, the generals ensured that every step of the transition served to preserve their dominance.
The fraudulent 2010 election under the military junta produced a government filled almost entirely with ex-generals, reinforcing the continuity of military rule.
In 2012, developments began with the by-election win of Aung San Suu Kyi and the entrance of the National League for Democracy (NLD) into parliament.
The carefully staged image of Aung San Suu Kyi shaking hands with President Thein Sein positioned directly in front of independence hero General Aung San’s portrait, became the emblem of Myanmar’s touted transition to democracy.
International optimism surged as sanctions were eased, investments flowed in, and multinational companies saw Myanmar as a new frontier for growth.
Civil society expanded rapidly, with journalists, activists, communities, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) enjoying a degree of freedom unseen in decades.
Many citizens remained skeptical, aware that the men now wearing longyis were the same ones who once ruled in khaki. But the reforms, however shallow, created a sense of opening.
For the first time in years, the public could imagine an alternative political future. From the military’s perspective, this was a risky move. The generals came to believe that even limited political liberalization had allowed civil society to grow too powerful and too popular.
The decade from 2011 to 2020, that followed their showcase democracy, became, in their eyes, an unintended experiment that undermined their long-term supremacy and economic dominance.
The overwhelming back-to-back landslide victories of the NLD in the 2015 and 2020 elections confirmed their fears. Once society tasted political freedom—freedom of association, freedom of expression, and minimal space to organize—military dominance became harder to justify and sustain.
Civil society networks built during the reform era later became the backbone of nationwide resistance after the 2021 military coup. What the junta had intended as a controlled liberalization ended up providing citizens with the tools, networks, and imagination needed to challenge military rule.
This hard lesson defines the junta’s current approach as it prepares for the 2025 election set to begin on December 28. The generals are determined not to repeat what they now view as the mistakes of the previous transition.
Unlike in 2010, when opening a small political space helped legitimize the shift from direct military rule, the upcoming election is being designed as a transition without openness: one that minimizes, rather than manages, civilian participation.
The current political landscape makes this shift clear. Pro-democratic groups are calling for an election boycott, describing the process as a “sham,” while some self-described pragmatic civilian politicians inside Myanmar still hope participation may create a narrow path toward political survival.
Yet these expectations underestimate the extent to which the junta has remodeled the political environment. Today’s military junta is deeply suspicious not only of opposition figures but even of those previously aligned with them, indicating their low confidence.
The disqualification of business magnate Thet Thet Khine, a former NLD member who founded the People’s Pioneer Party (PPP) and served as a junta minister after the coup, is the clearest sign of this shift.
Despite previously being praised by the junta for her role in the post-coup political landscape, she has been barred from participating in the upcoming elections. Her exclusion is not an isolated incident but a revealing symbol of the junta’s insecurities.
This political insecurity stems from several lessons the military internalized after the 2010–2020 democratization experience. It recognizes that political liberalization contributed to the rise of strong civilian opposition, especially the NLD’s electoral dominance, which directly challenged the military’s claim to legitimacy.
Civil society growth across the country created new networks capable of mobilizing public opinion, coordinating protest movements, and challenging military authority.
Furthermore, generals view international engagement and donor-supported reforms, including public administration training, development projects, and governance programs, as mechanisms that strengthened democratic actors more than the military-aligned bureaucracy.
Figures who gained popularity, even if they were not part of the opposition, became perceived threats, prompting the junta to exert firm control over political participation in the 2025-26 elections.
The barring of Thet Thet Khine is therefore a calculated warning: loyalty does not guarantee inclusion. If a trusted figure like her can be removed for being politically “inconvenient,” other civilian politicians, especially those with independent reputations or past democratic credentials face an even narrower political space.
People’s Party founder Ko Ko Gyi, whose political journey involves both dissent and pragmatism, should expect participation to be tolerated only to the extent that it serves the junta’s objectives.
They cannot anticipate meaningful influence or negotiation power. The junta is not interested in cultivating civilian partners but in eliminating potential competitors.
These actions by the junta reveal how fundamentally different the 2025 “transition” is from the 2010 transition. The earlier shift, flawed as it was, allowed a limited degree of pluralism, partially because the military was confident in its own structural advantages under the 2008 Constitution.
The generals believed they could manage political competition while keeping decisive power in their hands. But the events of the past decade proved that even managed pluralism carries risks for their dominance. Today, the junta is no longer willing to take that chance.
The junta’s 2025-26 elections are designed to prevent political pluralism altogether. It seeks to ensure that no civilian actor, whether opposition or regime-aligned, can gain independent legitimacy, influence, or public support.
Thus, the upcoming election is not a step toward democratization, restoration, or compromise. It is a political maneuver aimed at consolidating military rule behind the appearance of procedural legitimacy.
The generals are preparing a transition, but one with no guarantee of civic space, no meaningful participation for democratic forces, and no room for the growth of alternative leadership. Unlike in 2010, the junta no longer seeks legitimacy through controlled openness; it seeks survival through controlled exclusion.
The lessons of the past decade have turned the military inward, paranoid, and more distrustful than ever of any actor outside of its chain of command. The political landscape of 2025 is therefore not an accidental product of the crisis but a deliberate response to the perceived failures of the 2010–2020 transition.
The generals are determined not to repeat what they now view as their greatest strategic mistake: allowing society, even briefly, to believe it could live without military rule.
The junta’s 2025-26 elections is a flawed transition with tighter power grabbing. It is the tightening of an already shrinking political sphere, a reassertion of military dominance, and a direct rejection of the very openness that once gave Myanmar a glimpse of possibility.
It is a transition without hope, without pluralism, and without space unlike post-2010 so-called transition, prepared to ensure that civilian actors remain on the margins, and the military remains at the center of Myanmar’s political future.
Oh Nyo is a pseudonym used by a student from Chiang Mai University who contributes articles related to Myanmar politics for independent media.
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