NLD's leader ship

Excerpts from The loss of Myanmar’s Democratic Voice from Asian Times online By Brian McCartan

What recently happened in Yangon and other cities across Myanmar was largely the result of widespread grassroots discontent. However, the opposition group with its finger most on the public pulse and the ability to focus that discontent into large-scale protests was not the NLD, but rather the newer 88 Generation Student Group. . Almost the entire leadership of this group was immediately arrested, leaving the protests leaderless.

The Buddhist clergy, fired up by the beating of monks in a monastery in the town of Pakokku on September 5, took over the protest movement. The monks, however, were largely leaderless, outside of the individual leaders of each protest march. Without a central leader figure, the monks were still able to organize 100,000-strong marches in Yangon and galvanize tens of thousands of protesters in others cities across the country.

With this large-scale movement calling for political change, it would have been logical for the NLD to come to the forefront, but instead the party remained on the sidelines. Individual members participated in certain marches, but nowhere was party senior leadership in evidence leading protests. On September 14, the NLD released a public statement blaming the SPDC for Myanmar's economic deterioration, popular discontent and the upshot protests. In the same statement, the party called for dialogue with the regime, but that was as far as the NLD was willing to stretch itself.

Indeed, the NLD appeared to have been initially caught off-guard by the protests. This may be an indication of how distant in recent years it has become from the grass-roots population. Most of the NLD leadership is in their 70s or 80s and in recent years they have been repeatedly criticized for being too conservative and unwilling to up the ante of their resistance to the regime.

The question remains: can the pro-democracy movement that asserted itself in the streets move forward without effective and experienced leadership to focus, articulate and negotiate its demands? At least so far, the NLD has demonstrated an impotence in serving that crucial role.