There are few people in the world that think the up coming November elections in Burma will be elections. For the most part it is an exercise to simply take some of the heat off the junta by mimicking something that resembles an election.
Creating a law so the predicted anti junta winner can not compete just about sums it up. There is a dictator installed who simply does not want to go. The same was seen recently in Iran and that erupted into protests that were violently put down. Spilling blood in the streets seems to be how these things seem to end.
There are a handful of countries in the world who do their best to make it look like what the rest of the world wants to see, but in reality it is all a farce. But on the same note we must accept the fact that not every country is ready for democracy as well.
There is a certain prerequisite that must be met before the seeds of democracy can be planted. The first and perhaps the most important in not gathering in mobs to go out and kill people they don’t like. In politically correct terms that is called ethnic clashes. Yes that still happens and sadly enough places where that is likely to happen are better off with a non democratic form of government to keep that all under control until a certain level of education can be reached that stops that behavior.
Burma on the other hand seems to be ready for a test drive at democracy, but unfortunately the results will be like a plastic toy lawn mower hard at work, nothing changes once it moves over the grass. The predictable results will show an overwhelming support for the junta that are simply meant to silence other countries and lessen international political pressure. If it was not for that political pressure there would not even be elections.
So that leaves the world or more specifically ASEAN with a dilemma on how to deal with this. Burma is clearly the black sheep of that family, but some other countries in ASEAN do not qualify for the Good Housekeeping seal of approval as well. No matter how you look at this, it is just one of those things that will happen unless some major disaster that directly effects the junta happens. Disasters that effect only the Burmese people like cyclone Nargis have already proven that to be true.
