Speaking as a participant at the BBC Burmese Program’s Current Affairs discussion yesterday, U Ye Tun, MP for Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP), popularly known as White Tiger Party, said to the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi, federalism is not a priority.

“What we keep on hearing is its repeated call for the amendment of Article 436 (where any amendment of the 2008 constitution requires a vote of more than 75% of all the representatives of the Union Assembly) and Article 59 (f) (that a Presidential candidate, his/her parent (s), spouse, child(ren) or their spouses not be a citizen of a foreign country),” he says. “I have noticed that it has not put forward the emergence of a federal system as the nation’s first priority issue.”

Sai Nyunt Lwin, known as Sai Nood among Shans, General Secretary of the ‘Tiger Head’ Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) agreed. “Had the NLD adopted genuine federalism, there wouldn’t have any need to set up (non-Burman) ethnic nationalities’ parties,” he said. “We would have thrown in our lot with the NLD.”

Sai Nyunt Lwin/Sai Nood

Sai Nyunt Lwin elaborated further that the two parties, despite having friendly relations, have not once engaged in discussions on ethnic nationalities affairs. “The NLD has always avoided making any commitments on the issue,” he said.

Nan Khin Htwe Myint, the NLD participant, however disagreed. “The NLD manifesto includes the call for a genuine federalism,” She argued. “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi herself openly supported the (1997) Maetharawhta Declaration demanding a genuine federal union together with the Right of Self Determination.”

The participants also discussed the issue of NLD contesting in ethnic states during the planned general elections. Here the two men’s views diverged.

While U Ye Tun maintained that a democracy should allow each party to make its choice and the people to decide on their own which party represents their interests (“Worrying about another party contesting in the same constituencies is un-democratic”), Sai Nyunt Lwin is of the opinion that the two sides, meaning the NLD and the ethnic parties, should sit down together to consider the pros-and-cons.

Nan Khin Htwe Myint

“The 2015 election is different from past elections in that we are now having 2,3,4 parties from the same ethnic nationalities running against one another,” he said. “Political observers are already warning about split votes. The situation may even worsen with the entry of the NLD. We are allied parties. We should try to reach an agreement on the matter.”

The SNLD won the largest seats in Shan State in the 1990 elections. The SNDP did the same in the 2010 elections. The two parties now appear to be set against each other this time.

“If they are going to do that, I’d rather vote for President Thein Sein,” said a young Shan woman coming from Kehsi. “At least he has promised us a federal system by signing the Deed of Commitment (DoC) on 12 February.”