VIEWPOINT
From Top Brass to a Bureaucratic Class Decades of military appointments to key positions in government have left Myanmar’s administrative apparatus in tatters By KYAW ZWA MOE / YANGON
G
en. Ne Win died 12 years ago, but the dictator’s disastrous legacy lingers on in Myanmar. One of the worst aspects of his decades-long rule: a “parachute policy”—so called in Myanmar for the way in which high-ranking military officers are dropped in from above to preside over ministries and other administrative departments—that has destroyed the administration of government in the country. If this particular policy had not been so assiduously implemented over the years, Myanmar might not have been dragged into the political, economic and social abyss that has left the country one of Asia’s poorest.
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TheIrrawaddy
The appointment of active and retired military officials to various positions of power, from low-ranking ministerial bureaucrats all the way up to the presidency, is a rare practice in governance globally—with good reason. When Gen. Ne Win staged a coup in 1962, he came to power determined to reorganize the whole administrative structure, which had been a largely civilian-dominated system since the country’s independence in 1948. When Myanmar’s inaugural government took the reins of the former British colony in January 1948, the country’s first premier U Nu formed an overwhelmingly civilian cabinet. Out of 19 cabinet ministers,
only three were active or former military officers. Nearly 85 percent of the cabinet was occupied by civilian ministers. In 1952, after the country’s first parliamentary election, U Nu’s party won again and his newly formed government was comprised of 22 cabinet ministers. This time, among them were only two former military officials.
November 2014