Amid speculation that National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is mulling the possibilities of fielding candidates for the coming election, there are also some other choices.
The year 2010 has arrived, a year of judgment for Burma's military government as well as a year of promise for the country. The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has promised to deliver its version of democracy to the country through an election. However, residents of the country's former capital, Rangoon, remain clueless about when the election will actually be held.
Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein - a daughter of U Kyaw Nyein, a deputy prime minister of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League government in the 1950s - plans to take part in the contest.
"We are still totally in the dark except that voter eligibility lists have been taken around the town for quite some time," said Cho Kyaw Nyein.
When asked about the situation of the country's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), whose party headquarters is only half a kilometre away from her house on the same side of the road, she said: "I chat with many from the NLD and I believe that they will eventually take part in the election. I also believe they could win seats if they do."
Twenty years ago Burma had an election hosted by the forebears of the same military junta, but when the NLD won big the junta discarded the results. Many in the NLD are now opposing the planned 2010 election.
NLD leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is still popular with the country's common folk, said Cho Kyaw Nyein. "People are still sympathetic to her. They are pleased with her latest gesture to the military government."
She was referring to Mrs Suu Kyi's letter to the junta chief, General Than Shwe, pledging her cooperation with the SPDC to work "for the benefit of the country". The public is hoping for a positive response from the government, but the junta has a track record of ignoring demands and requests made by the opposition.
The junta accuses Mrs Suu Kyi of being responsible for the economic sanctions imposed by Western nations. It wants her to clearly denounce the sanctions, which she seems to be reluctant to do without some guarantees.
Meanwhile, the NLD remains under tight restrictions.
When asked why the NLD could win if they choose to run in the next election, Cho Kyaw Nyein said that "basically people feel they have no alternative", meaning the SPDC government, despite its recent moderate achievements on the economy, remains unpopular and the NLD remains relevant as the only viable choice.
The sentiment was seconded by another Burmese woman who on Dec 31, 2009, returned to Belgium, where she has been working for 18 years, from a trip to Rangoon. On condition of anonymity, she said: "Like before, people seem to be going to vote for the NLD again despite its shortcomings. It will not be to vote the NLD in, but to vote what they detest out." She assumes the NLD will stand in the election.
The junta continues to rule the country in a heavy-handed top-down style, and the state bureaucracy is jam-packed with military families, rife with nepotism, corruption and incompetence. The state-owned telecommunications company, which monopolises the national market, has raised domestic phone call rates threefold in recent times.
Cho Kyaw Nyein said that the NLD could win in constituencies where former military officers were running, but she didn't think the NLD could pull off a landslide, as in 1990. Even so, that would be a major glitch in the plans of the old regime, which wants to re-entrench itself by taking on political legitimacy in a monopolistic manner.
On the other hand, in view of the long stand-off between the junta and the NLD, many groups, including the one Cho Kyaw Nyein belongs to, are trying to present themselves as part of a "third force". Cho Kyaw Nyein admits this contingent has a long way to go as the general public is largely indifferent to them at the moment.
Third force is a loose term to collectively refer to an assortment of groups that subscribe to neither the NLD nor the junta's camp politically, but are willing to cooperate with the latter to some extent. They include some breakaway NLD members, a few 1988 veteran student leaders like Aye Lwin, some ethnic ceasefire group leaders like Manam Tuja, a few leftist remnants known as "red flags", children of late national leaders like Cho Kyaw Nyein, and others who may be classified as to the right politically. One weakness of the third force is that it is too fragmented.
Cho Kyaw Nyein and two other women who also are daughters of former Burmese prime ministers - Mya Than Than Nu (daughter of U Nu) and Nay Yi Ba Swe (daughter of U Ba Swe) - are now rallying behind one U Thu Wai, a follower of U Nu in the 1970s, to form a political party in preparation for the coming election. They are projecting their group to become the "Democratic Party" when their registration is approved by the junta's election commission.
"We have been called 'Than Shwe's mistresses' by those who are opposing the election. We can take this kind of profanity as unavoidable in passing these hard times," said Cho Kyaw Nyein. "But I am a bit surprised that the same people who have cursed us are now praising those NLD people who want to participate in the election."
For now the NLD still has as its official stand the "Shwe Gon Dai Declaration", which rejects the coming election and calls for a dialogue with Gen Than Shwe, supposedly to revise the undemocratic parts of the new constitution adopted last year. The NLD party leadership is widely known to be split in its opinions on the election. The most vocal of the hardliners, U Win Tin, 80, who spent 19 years in prison, is holding fast to the party's official line.
But younger party moderates like U Khin Maung Swe clearly want the party to stand in the election. The two men reportedly have stopped talking to each other. Maung Swe is joined by two other party stalwarts: U Sein Hla Oo and Dr Than Nyein, who was released from prison in September 2008 after a seven-year incarceration. These moderates fear the NLD would be left out by boycotting the election, allowing the junta to push its own way quite unilaterally. Cho Kyaw Nyein perceives that NLD moderates are inclined to work with some of the third forces such as her group, while hardliners see them as mere opportunists.
Recently, from her guarded home, Mrs Suu Kyi tried to revitalise the NLD by transfusing new blood into the leadership. She has met, by permission of the junta, with members of the party's senile old guard who stopped coming to the party headquarters. Cho Kyaw Nyein thinks she is well aware of the situation and hopes to be more flexible.
From a party which has long been on a collision course with the regime, a policy turnaround could cause an emotional shock, especially among its international supporters who have kept the politics of the NLD alive throughout the years. The daunting task of making the hard choices may eventually be left to Mrs Suu Kyi. But even party moderates who are willing to stand in the election feel they should wait and see how the junta's election laws actually turn out. They know the next election is a different game, not a "winner takes all" parliamentary election like the previous one.
"If the NLD stands in the election, all of us [third forcers] will have an unfavourable contest," Cho Kyaw Nyein conceded. "Nevertheless, we still prefer them to come aboard rather than shun it."
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