ABSTRACT
The transfer of power from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to the National League for Democracy (NLD) in April 2016 marked a significant step forward in the recent history of the Myanmar state (naingntaw). For only the second time under the 2008 constitution, control of the state successfully changed hands through the mandate of the ballot box. Many international observers regarded the ascension of Aung San Suu Kyi to the highest echelons of government via the national elections of 2015 as the all-important sign that genuine democracy in Myanmar had arrived. Although the crucial institutional changes actually occurred five years earlier with the arrival of the Thein Sein administration and his celebrated reforms, Aung San Suu Kyi’s ardent supporters at home and abroad privileged the outcome of the elections—rather than the institutional process—as the criterion for political transformation. Some commentators reserved judgement until they could determine if the Tatmadaw (military) would step aside and assess whether the NLD could manage the transition from activism to governing. In the four months between the November 2015 elections and the handover in April 2016, stakeholders negotiated behind closed doors to manage what was clearly uncharted territory (Clapp 2015).
