Bangladesh’s ‘protest’ party NCP won only six seats. Why have youth movements, from Sri Lanka to Nepal, struggled to challenge traditional leadership and political parties?
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Please draft a rebuttal as proposed. Thanks!
Myanmar’s struggle is not a story of “winning the streets but losing elections.” It is a story of a military overthrowing an elected government, waging war on its own people, and preventing any genuine election from taking place. The article’s core frame simply does not fit the post‑coup reality.
1. No “recently concluded elections” in Myanmar
The article claims that Myanmar has recently held elections in which the military‑backed USDP has “won a decisive victory.” That is factually wrong. Since the 1 February 2021 coup, the junta has not conducted any nationwide, credible general election. It has instead repeatedly postponed the sham polls it promised, as it loses territory and legitimacy in the face of armed and civil resistance. The last real general election was in November 2020, when the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory that the military then nullified at gunpoint.
In other words, there is no electoral outcome in post‑coup Myanmar that can be used to prove that “street” movements failed to convert mobilization into votes. There is only the brute fact that the generals refused to respect the votes that were actually cast.
2. A coup against a landslide, not a protest that “couldn’t win”
The article’s regional thesis suggests a common pattern: youth‑led movements can draw crowds and topple governments but somehow fail where it really matters—at the ballot box. That logic is inverted in Myanmar. Before the coup, decades of civic mobilization, party organizing, and underground activism culminated in repeated NLD victories in 2015 and 2020, despite a military‑written constitution and reserved seats for officers. Far from failing to “translate the streets into seats,” Myanmar’s democratic forces did exactly that under extraordinarily restrictive rules.
The problem was not that movements could not win elections. It was that the military refused to accept their repeated electoral victories. Treating Myanmar as one more case of protesters “losing” at the ballot box erases that central reality and implicitly blames citizens for an outcome created by tanks, not voters.
3. No normal “street vs ballot” dynamic under total war
The article’s framework assumes that there is a functioning electoral arena in which protest movements either succeed or fail. That is not the case in Myanmar. After the coup, the struggle shifted from electoral competition to nationwide resistance against an entrenched military regime.
Students, workers, civil servants and professionals launched the Civil Disobedience Movement, paralyzing state functions and refusing to work under junta control.
A broad constellation of local defence forces and ethnic resistance organisations has opened a multi‑front war, with the National Unity Government attempting to coordinate political and military efforts.
The junta has responded with scorched‑earth tactics, massacres, airstrikes and mass displacement on a scale that makes anything resembling normal political competition impossible.
In this environment, asking why student movements have “not won elections” is like asking why fire‑fighters have not yet rebuilt the house they are still inside trying to stop from burning down. Elections are not the arena of contest right now; physical survival and liberation from military rule are.
4. Mischaracterizing youth movements and generational politics
The article also suggests that youth movements are inherently transient and that leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi “did not absorb and promote” student leaders, implying a neat causal chain from generational mis‑management to electoral “failure.” This is at best an oversimplification. For decades, Myanmar’s student and youth activists—especially the 1988 generation—have sustained long, often underground, forms of resistance: organizing unions, coordinating protests, building community structures and, more recently, bridging the gap between older NLD‑aligned networks and new post‑coup formations.
There is legitimate debate about centralization and generational dynamics in the NLD. But those internal political questions cannot explain why youth‑led movements supposedly “lost” an election that was never held, or a result that was never honored. To suggest otherwise reduces a brutal coup and a complex, evolving resistance to a cautionary tale about fickle Gen‑Z activists.
5. Collapsing very different regimes into one story
Finally, by lumping Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal into a single narrative about “winning the streets” but “losing elections,” the article collapses crucial differences:
Nepal, despite instability and elite capture, has held broadly competitive multiparty elections in which newcomers such as Balen Shah could emerge through the ballot box.
Bangladesh has held polls whose fairness and competitiveness are heavily disputed, amid boycotts, repression, and a ruling party that dominates the state.
Myanmar is in the grip of a military junta that overthrew an elected government, annulled results, and is fighting a nationwide war against its own population.
These are not variations on a single theme. In Myanmar, there is no meaningful electoral marketplace where movements could simply “organise better” and succeed next time. There is a junta that refuses to allow “next time” unless it can predetermine the outcome.
6. A more accurate lesson
If there is a lesson from Myanmar, it is not that youth movements must learn to “convert the streets into votes.” They already did, repeatedly. The lesson is that:
Elections without civilian control of the military are fragile and reversible.
Constitutional and institutional design—who controls force, courts, and electoral bodies—matters as much as turnout and campaign tactics.
When authoritarian actors can arbitrarily nullify results, movements need strategies that go beyond elections: building alternative institutions, forging broad social coalitions, and securing international leverage that constrains coup‑makers.
Any serious comparative analysis must start from these structural facts. Recasting Myanmar’s tragedy as another example of “protesters who can’t win elections” misdiagnoses the problem and risks normalizing, rather than challenging, authoritarian rule.
Please draft a rebuttal as proposed. Thanks!
Myanmar’s struggle is not a story of “winning the streets but losing elections.” It is a story of a military overthrowing an elected government, waging war on its own people, and preventing any genuine election from taking place. The article’s core frame simply does not fit the post‑coup reality.
1. No “recently concluded elections” in Myanmar
The article claims that Myanmar has recently held elections in which the military‑backed USDP has “won a decisive victory.” That is factually wrong. Since the 1 February 2021 coup, the junta has not conducted any nationwide, credible general election. It has instead repeatedly postponed the sham polls it promised, as it loses territory and legitimacy in the face of armed and civil resistance. The last real general election was in November 2020, when the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory that the military then nullified at gunpoint.
In other words, there is no electoral outcome in post‑coup Myanmar that can be used to prove that “street” movements failed to convert mobilization into votes. There is only the brute fact that the generals refused to respect the votes that were actually cast.
2. A coup against a landslide, not a protest that “couldn’t win”
The article’s regional thesis suggests a common pattern: youth‑led movements can draw crowds and topple governments but somehow fail where it really matters—at the ballot box. That logic is inverted in Myanmar. Before the coup, decades of civic mobilization, party organizing, and underground activism culminated in repeated NLD victories in 2015 and 2020, despite a military‑written constitution and reserved seats for officers. Far from failing to “translate the streets into seats,” Myanmar’s democratic forces did exactly that under extraordinarily restrictive rules.
The problem was not that movements could not win elections. It was that the military refused to accept their repeated electoral victories. Treating Myanmar as one more case of protesters “losing” at the ballot box erases that central reality and implicitly blames citizens for an outcome created by tanks, not voters.
3. No normal “street vs ballot” dynamic under total war
The article’s framework assumes that there is a functioning electoral arena in which protest movements either succeed or fail. That is not the case in Myanmar. After the coup, the struggle shifted from electoral competition to nationwide resistance against an entrenched military regime.
Students, workers, civil servants and professionals launched the Civil Disobedience Movement, paralyzing state functions and refusing to work under junta control.
A broad constellation of local defence forces and ethnic resistance organisations has opened a multi‑front war, with the National Unity Government attempting to coordinate political and military efforts.
The junta has responded with scorched‑earth tactics, massacres, airstrikes and mass displacement on a scale that makes anything resembling normal political competition impossible.
In this environment, asking why student movements have “not won elections” is like asking why fire‑fighters have not yet rebuilt the house they are still inside trying to stop from burning down. Elections are not the arena of contest right now; physical survival and liberation from military rule are.
4. Mischaracterizing youth movements and generational politics
The article also suggests that youth movements are inherently transient and that leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi “did not absorb and promote” student leaders, implying a neat causal chain from generational mis‑management to electoral “failure.” This is at best an oversimplification. For decades, Myanmar’s student and youth activists—especially the 1988 generation—have sustained long, often underground, forms of resistance: organizing unions, coordinating protests, building community structures and, more recently, bridging the gap between older NLD‑aligned networks and new post‑coup formations.
There is legitimate debate about centralization and generational dynamics in the NLD. But those internal political questions cannot explain why youth‑led movements supposedly “lost” an election that was never held, or a result that was never honored. To suggest otherwise reduces a brutal coup and a complex, evolving resistance to a cautionary tale about fickle Gen‑Z activists.
5. Collapsing very different regimes into one story
Finally, by lumping Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal into a single narrative about “winning the streets” but “losing elections,” the article collapses crucial differences:
Nepal, despite instability and elite capture, has held broadly competitive multiparty elections in which newcomers such as Balen Shah could emerge through the ballot box.
Bangladesh has held polls whose fairness and competitiveness are heavily disputed, amid boycotts, repression, and a ruling party that dominates the state.
Myanmar is in the grip of a military junta that overthrew an elected government, annulled results, and is fighting a nationwide war against its own population.
These are not variations on a single theme. In Myanmar, there is no meaningful electoral marketplace where movements could simply “organise better” and succeed next time. There is a junta that refuses to allow “next time” unless it can predetermine the outcome.
6. A more accurate lesson
If there is a lesson from Myanmar, it is not that youth movements must learn to “convert the streets into votes.” They already did, repeatedly. The lesson is that:
Elections without civilian control of the military are fragile and reversible.
Constitutional and institutional design—who controls force, courts, and electoral bodies—matters as much as turnout and campaign tactics.
When authoritarian actors can arbitrarily nullify results, movements need strategies that go beyond elections: building alternative institutions, forging broad social coalitions, and securing international leverage that constrains coup‑makers.
Any serious comparative analysis must start from these structural facts. Recasting Myanmar’s tragedy as another example of “protesters who can’t win elections” misdiagnoses the problem and risks normalizing, rather than challenging, authoritarian rule.