The polls are closed and the counting is finished. Burma’s Nov. 8 election has resulted in a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). The election itself was deemed ‘competitive and meaningful.’ Voters in the country also known as Myanmar were not systematically disqualified, ballot boxes were not systematically stuffed, and voters in rural regions weren’t cowed into voting for the incumbent party. Still, the elections were structurally unfair, given that the military passed an amendment disqualifying Suu Kyi from the presidency. That 80 percent of eligible voters turned out to support the opposition was an undeniable moment of triumph for the forces of democracy and for the determined and dignified voters who stood for hours to cast their ballots.

The historic election is just the beginning of an arduous and fragile democratic transition for this country of 51 million people. In 1990, after a similar NLD landslide, the military vowed to hand over power to any government creating a new constitution. Months later, it backtracked brutally. While many observers expect 2015 to be different because the military now has constitutionally-reserved powers that allow it a continued say in politics, a democratizing future for Burma is hardly assured. The new government will not be formed for several months. Until then, we are likely to see a lot of shrewd bargaining between the incoming government and the military. Looking ahead, the country’s democratic future hinges most critically on these four questions: 

1. Will the Burmese military relinquish political power? 

Genuine strengthening of the democratic transition will require a constitutional reduction of the military’s role in politics. The 2008 constitution affirms that a basic principle governing the country is to allow the ‘Defence Services to participate in the national political leadership of the state.’ The constitution accords the military 25 percent of the seats in the lower and upper parliament, 30 percent of the seats in regional parliaments, and full control over the three most powerful ministries: Defense, Home Affairs, and Border Affairs. Any constitutional change, including change that would enable Suu Kyi to become a future president, requires a super-majority of more than 75 percent of parliament. This grants the military an effective veto over constitutional change.

Changes to the constitutional structure of power will be foremost among the incoming government’s priorities. Yet diminishing the Tatmadaw’s (Burmese military’s) writ of power requires its own acquiescence. Since militaries with histories of coups are more likely to commit subsequent coups, what prospects are there for the military to willingly and enduringly retreat to the barracks?

The military’s desire to bring the country onto the lucrative development path followed by other East Asian tigers has probably contributed to its surprising decision to liberalize politics in 2011. But will the military stay out of power, as has happened in Indonesia? Or will it dive back into politics at the next opportune moment, as happens in Pakistan and Thailand? Indonesia too had military reservations in parliament – 15 percent of seats just before and 7-8 percent of seats just after the 1998 transition. In Indonesia, the military was induced to draw down its parliamentary and economic footprint over the post-transition decade by international pressure, a vigorously free press and a wide array of civil society organizations working on military and political reform. If the Burmese military is to follow a similar path of willing retreat, it will need continual engagement by these same actors. How the military’s role now evolves will be critical to Burma’s democratic future. 

2. How will the incoming government choose to spend its ample political capital? 

Whether Burma travels Indonesia’s path to democracy or Pakistan’s path to perpetual instability will also be determined by whether the new government can successfully govern and thereby undercut any rationale for future military intervention. In many ways, the new government will face challenges similar to those faced by a new government in many poor countries. How will it promote equitable development and stable ethnic power-sharing? How will it jumpstart modernization of its health and education systems? How will it initiate infrastructure development and manage the flood of foreign investment (and the inevitable environmental threats it raises)?

But unlike other poor and politically unstable countries, this election was fought and won simply on the basis of Suu Kyi’s titanic popularity. Consequently, we know very little about the incoming government’s programmatic agenda. Banking upon Suu Kyi’s personal charisma and legacy of sacrifice worked as an electoral strategy, but it will not suffice as a governing strategy. The NLD now possesses enormous political capital but also the weight of sky-high expectations. What will it choose to do first, how will it choose to do it and crucially, can it deliver? 

3. Will the NLD develop leadership capability beyond Suu Kyi? 

Going forward, Aung San Suu Kyi will serve as Burma’s Sonia Gandhi, selecting a mild-mannered president and ruling ‘from above’ while making all the decisions herself. The president will likely be someone similar to the elderly NLD former Vice Chairman Tin Oo who, not unlike India’s Manmohan Singh, is uninterested in developing an autonomous political career.

But regardless of who rules, will the NLD develop capable party leadership beyond Aung San Suu Kyi? Thus far, the signs have not been encouraging. Before the recent elections, the NLD’s executive committee rejected the candidacy of many vaunted leaders of the 1988 pro-democracy movement who had been crucial party supporters. Younger NLD members who were put forth as candidates for this election were gagged from speaking out on any policy issues. This was probably because the party’s executive committee correctly calculated that detailing policy agendas would subject the NLD to unnecessary criticism when relying on Suu Kyi’s popularity could deliver a landslide. But it is worth remembering that no NLD member has ever held an important elective office and that no NLD member has yet become an important leader through the party itself.

If the democratizing trajectory is to continue, this must change. My research shows that a well-organized national party with many experienced leaders was the single most critical explanation for the divergent democratic trajectories of nearby India and Pakistan. Democratic parties that centralize power in one individual are unlikely to remain in power when that leader passes away. Democratic parties that govern for prolonged periods are typically led by leaders whose careers are defined by party service. While Pakistan could not do without Jinnah at the governing helm of its nationalist movement to preserve its young democratic government, India could and did do without Gandhi at the governing helm of its nationalist movement. Will Suu Kyi encourage NLD leaders to emerge who can challenge her and thereby develop the party’s ability to govern without her, as it eventually must? Or will she continue to govern as a charismatic leader whose party will not long outlive her? 

4. Will Suu Kyi finally speak out against Rohingya persecution? 

During the past few years, Suu Kyi has refused to publicly condemn violence against the Muslim Rohingyas, regularly designated the world’s most persecuted minority. Viewing Suu Kyi through the prism of a Nobel Peace laureate and a beacon of moral courage, international supporters have been hugely disappointed at her willingness to condone the rising levels of anti-Muslim violence.

But when seeing Suu Kyi through the prism of a politician whose predominant aim is to move the country away from military control, this decision can be seen as politically instrumental. The outgoing government’s encouragement of Buddhist extremism amounted to a textbook strategy for mobilizing a majority at the expense of a minority. The outgoing government thereby intentionally put Suu Kyi in a difficult position: if she spoke out against powerful Buddhist extremists, she would have lost votes among religious voters. Remaining silent as she did may have maximized votes but brought criticism from both right and left: for coddling Muslims by the influential Ma Ba Tha extremists and for being morally bankrupt by the international human rights community.

This strategy cannot be morally condoned, but it could be politically understood. Now however, armed with an absolute majority in parliament and the still-copious goodwill of the international community, will she spend some of her newfound political capital condemning the Rohingya violence and speaking out in favor of human rights for all those living within Burma’s borders? Or, paralleling Prime Minister Modi in neighboring India, will she continue to be silent and pander to an extremist base? Her actions at this formative moment will have enduring consequences for whether Myanmar will continue on the bumpy road towards democratic consolidation or falter on the basis of minority exclusion.

Maya Tudor is associate professor of politics and public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. She was in Yangon for the Nov. 8 elections as an international observer with the Carter Center and is currently writing a book on when militaries retreat from governing power.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi "purged" opposition of Muslims ahead of election, senior party member tells Al Jazeera.

Myanmar's main opposition party, led by the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, deliberately bypassed Muslim candidates ahead of the November election, a senior party member told Al Jazeera' s Investigative Unit. 

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source said Suu Kyi ordered an " Islamic purge" in the National League for Democracy (NLD) to appease growing anti-Muslim sentiment fuelled by hardline Buddhist nationalists. 

Not one of the NLD' s 1,151 candidates standing for regional and national elections is Muslim, despite there being around 5 million Muslims - or between 4 and 10 percent of the population - in the country. 

There are also no Muslim candidates in the military-backed, governing Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) running in what has been billed as the country' s first free and fair general election in 25 years. 

In the run up to the vote, local election commissions reportedly rejected dozens of Muslim candidates with authorities denying that their parents were citizens, claims which many of the shunned candidates denied. 

"I think Suu Kyi is a bit concerned about the Ma Ba Tha, so it became an Islamic purge here," said the source. 

The Ma Ba Tha is an increasingly effective, ultranationalist Buddhist movement, also known as ' The Association for the Protection of Race and Religion' , whose outspoken members are known for their bitter speeches attacking the ethnic minority Muslim Rohingya. 

"Islamic people have been persecuted," said the source. " A party should have all kinds of people and all kinds of religions." 

Disenfranchised 

Suu Kyi, 70, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, for her non-violent struggle for democracy. 

Her silence on the marginalisation of the Rohingya and general exclusion of Muslims, however, have drawn criticism. 

"The anti-Muslim monks are becoming stronger and stronger," said the source, adding that authorities should crack down on what the source called extremist members of the Ma Ba Tha instead of " sponsoring them" . 

Win Htein, a senior NLD member who is coordinating its campaign, told Al Jazeera that the party decided that to secure the best chance of winning, Muslims would have to be left out. 

"In the present climate, we believe that it is a better strategy to win by leaving out Muslims candidates in coming election," he said, claiming that potential candidates of the Islamic faith had "agreed to that." 

Some 15 Rohingya candidates were barred in August this year from running, again on account of their parents being 'foreign-born'.

Earlier this year, the government effectively disenfranchised about 700,000 people, mostly Rohingya, when it declared holders of " white cards" ineligible to vote. The cards had been issued as temporary identification documents, and white-card holders had been permitted to vote in the 2010 election. 

"Rohingyas have been removed from the elections by the USDP where they used to participate. You could say that where Islam is concerned, everyone - the monks and the government - is united. 

"Now the elections are unequivocally Islamic-free." 

‘Burma’s Bin Laden’ 

Myanmar has witnessed a surge of nationalism since 2012 when riots erupted in the Rakhine state, a flashpoint for rising aggression towards the Rohingya who make up a third of the state ’ s 3 million people. 

Ashin Wirathu, an extremist Buddhist monk, was jailed in 2003 for inciting hatred and stirring sectarian clashes and released in 2010. Wirathu , dubbed the ‘ Burmese Bin Laden ’, has warned of an impending Muslim takeover of Myanmar.

He said that the violence in 2012, which saw dozens killed and several thousands of Rohingya displaced, was justified because the minority group was planning to establish an Islamic state in Rakhine. 

"Wirathu has a network for everything that is happening in the country," said the source. " If he wanted Islamic households in Bago to be destroyed, all he would have to do is snap his fingers. The [hardline Buddhist] groups there would destroy them. 

"Things would be peaceful if he was dragged [back] into prison, but they [authorities] don ’ t subdue him." 

Dark shadow 

There are more than 90 registered political parties expecting to win votes next month. 

In addition to blocking Rohingya from participating, military-aligned units are casting further doubt the election will be free and fair, according to Human Rights Watch researcher David Matheison. 

In a report published last month, he wrote: " With a little more than a month to go before Burma ’ s national elections, military aligned militia units are casting a dark shadow over the polls. 

"These proxies, known as Pyithu Sit (People ’ s Militias) and Neh San Tat (Border Guard Forces) are intimidating voters in Burma ’ s ethnic-minority borderlands and are stopping candidates from campaigning. This exacerbates the problems in some regions, where ongoing fighting between government forces and ethnic armed groups will prevent voting from taking place." 

Myanmar recognises 135 ethnic minorities but denies citizenship to others, including the Rohingya. The country has no reliable opinion polls, but it is expected that parties based along ethnic lines would win most seats. 

The Ma Ba Tha effect on the electorate is also difficult to gauge. Despite the NLD "purging Muslims", the paranoid nationalist group often dubs Suu Kyi ’s party the 'party of Islamists'. 

Voters, explained the Al Jazeera Investigative Unit source, will likely struggle when deciding where to place their ballot papers. 

"Today, people are having problems. They don’t know who to vote for. The NLD is in chaos now, and so, they don't like it, but there ’ s no one else to vote for in the USDP … People don't like the USDP at all. 

"It’s everyone, not just Muslims. Non-Muslims are also displeased at how the NLD selected candidates."

Whipping up hatred by manipulating the threat of sexual violence is being used as a political tool, analysts say.

It started with the allegation of a rape. 

A Buddhist woman, Phyu Phyu Min, filed a police report in Myanmar's second largest city, Mandalay, charging that two Muslim co-workers raped her. Before long, a local website picked the story up.

"It started from a website called Thit Htoo Lwin with a story that a cook from a house was raped by two brothers," says, Maung Maung, a local Muslim leader.

It wasn't until a prominent Buddhist monk named Ashin Wirathu published the claim on his Facebook page that the allegations went viral. Wirathu, known for his anti-Muslim rhetoric, wrote this subject line: "The Mafia is Spreading and Coming to Town."

The consequences were lethal.

Within 24 hours, on July 1st, 2014, angry Buddhist mobs armed with sticks, knives, and torches marched through the streets of Mandalay. They circled the local mosque, Muslim-owned businesses, and the teashop where the accused worked . 

"There were motorcades and shouting, 'Kill the Kalars.' Kalars means Muslims," says Samar Nyinyi, a Muslim civic leader who witnessed the violence. "Folks from the cars spit on Muslims openly in the daytime and after that, folks came with swords and spears."

One Buddhist and one Muslim man were killed in the ensuing two days of violence, dozens were injured, Muslim shops ransacked, and a mosque badly burned.

But the original allegation of rape that seemingly incited the violence - the one that Wirathu posted on his Facebook page - was part of a carefully orchestrated lie.

The rape never happened.

"Rumours create conflicts" 

A couple had paid Phyu Phyu Min to open the rape case at the behest of a business rival of the accused Muslim brothers, said the English-language Irrawaddy magazine, quoting the Ministry of Home Affairs.

"They paid her," says Thein Than Oo, who was an appellate lawyer in a related court case. "They said, 'Make an accusation like this. We'll pay you,' and asked her to do that."

Phyu Phyu Min's husband was in prison for drug offences and she needed the money, according to reports.

She later rescinded her original rape allegation.

"Rumours are great for creating conflicts," says one Burmese journalist and former political prisoner who witnessed the riots.

"The government announced that the rape case in Sun Cafe did not take place at all. The government provided evidence for that. The government itself said that it wasn't true. It said the report was fabricated."

This is not the first time allegations of rape have been used to incite communal violence in Myanmar.

Claiming that a Buddhist woman has been raped, an "honour crime" in the country, has become common to mobilise anti-Muslim mobs. These, in turn, often lead to retributive rape.

In June 2012, violent clashes broke out after a young Buddhist girl was allegedly raped and murdered by three Muslims. In retaliation, 10 Muslims were lynched. State media further stoked anti-Muslim sentiment by invoking the derogatory word "kalar" in their coverage. Deadly riots that followed left around 200 dead.

Later, human rights organisations documented widespread and systematic rape of Rohingya women by military and security forces.

In August 2013, a Muslim man was arrested for the attempted rape of a Buddhist woman. Eye-witnesses said they were arguing but denied he tried to rape her. When police refused to hand him over to Buddhist mobs, they burned down Muslim homes and shops.

Al-Jazeera's Investigative Unit has now found strong evidence that these riots were planned.

Spreading hate 

In many of these cases, Facebook was used as a vehicle to publicise the unverified rape allegation. Since Facebook became legal in Myanmar, after the country emerged from military rule in 2010, its popularity has not only spiked but also gave rise to a new era of hate speech.

But anti-Muslim propaganda is not only spread online.

"Facebook is important, but they do have many other channels, including distributing pamphlets, VCD videos, and organising speeches in very rural villages," says Wai Wai Nu, a young Rohingya activist.

"They now have a new channel called the 'Dammah School' - it's like a Sunday school, and they are organising young people and kids from Buddhist society in many rural places and teaching them to hate other religions, that Muslims are the terrorists, they are rapists and they will invade your country."

Under Myanmar penal code 1860, rape is illegal and requires a vigorous investigation. 

But there's a troubling trend in the country that puts the validity of these cases in jeopardy: Local leaders are using rape as a political tool to fuel religious and ethnic hatred.

Their actions are not only instigating communal violence, but are disempowering rape victims and, instead, giving a platform to those looking to spread hate.

Rape rarely prosecuted 

"Nationalist monks are appealing to these irrational fears of the Buddhist population, and then adding in this layer - this idea that the Muslims are coming for our women," says Matthew Smith, the cofounder of Fortify Rights, who has been documenting human rights abuses in the country for nearly 10 years.

"The tragic irony is that rape is a crime that's rarely prosecuted in Myanmar, yet, it's used to instigate violence against entire populations of people."

Phyu Phyu Min is now in jail, serving a minimum 21-year sentence for fabricating the rape.

Wirathu, the influential monk who played a role in sparking the resulting violence, still posts on Facebook.

Whipping up hatred has become a Wirathu trademark. He is a prominent figure in the Ma Ba Tha, a Buddhist monk-led organisation that commits itself to preserving the religion in Myanmar.

The group interprets Islam as a serious threat, working to pass discriminatory legislation while threatening those who promote interreligious harmony.

Wirathu was jailed in 2003 for hate speech that incited anti-Muslim riots. But since his release in 2010, he's kept busy acquiring political power and military backing. President Thein Sein has even called him the "Son of the Lord Buddha".

"This is the one thing that can truly make people commit truly horrific crimes - this existential threat," says Smith. "He's attempting to leverage fears of a Muslim takeover for political gain. He'll incite people to violence, and he's not being held accountable for it."

The Southeast Asian nation hopes to finally throw off the shackles of military dictatorship

Early next month Burma goes to the polls for what are shaping up to be its freest general elections for 25 years. The National League for Democracy (NLD) party of former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, is poised to win a sizeable chunk of the 664 legislative seats. That would be a watershed moment for the former pariah nation, which has opened up politically and economically since democratic reforms were introduced three years ago.

However, significant problems remain. Suu Kyi, who is already a legislator, remains barred from becoming President, owing to her having married a Briton and having two sons who are U.K. citizens. These constitutional provisions were introduced by the former junta specifically to scupper the democracy icon’s political aspirations.

On Tuesday, the NLD announced it had filed a complaint against the country’s Union Election Commission regarding error-strewn voter lists, alleged defamation against Suu Kyi and perceived bias in favor of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

All this will worry Washington. U.S. President Barack Obama has visitedBurma twice in the past three years, championing the democratic transition and rolling back economic sanctions. This is not simply altruism: a free, prosperous Burma (officially now known as Myanmar) would prove a boon to his administration’s much-touted “rebalancing” to Asia. Conversely, any electoral skulduggery would prove embarrassing.

Here are seven factors that may prove decisive as the nation heads to the ballot box on Nov. 8.

1. NLD fumbling

On May 27, 1990, two years after mass student-led democracy protests shook the nation, largely free and fair polls saw the NLD secure 60% of the popular vote and 80% of parliamentary seats (392 out of 485). But the military refused to honor the result and Burma returned to suffocating dictatorship. In the interim, Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest. The euphoria that accompanied the Nobel Laureate’s release and subsequent election to parliament in April 2012 by-elections, during which the NLD won 43 out of 45 contested seats, raised hopes that the party would romp home if the 2015 polls were similarly unfettered.

However, the mood has soured markedly since then. A controversial party list saw some potential big name candidates — including celebrated former political prisoners — shunned, and not a single Muslim among the 1,090 names, a testament to the party’s cowing to an increasingly vocal, hard-line Buddhist clique. Several senior party members have been expelled for questioning these decisions, prompting accusations of a lack of democracy within a pro-democracy party. Last week, the NLD leadership reportedlybanned candidates from speaking to the media for three weeks. And even though Suu Kyi remains barred from the presidency, no alternative candidate has been proffered for the top job. “You are not voting for individuals,” Suu Kyi told supporters last month. “You are voting for change.” An election manifesto has finally been published but is sparse on how exactly this change is to be achieved.

2. USDP rumblings

Given the abuses suffered during more than half a century of dictatorship, few expected the USDP, staffed by former junta generals, to remain a political force once Burma made the transition to democracy. However, the party has recast itself as a bulwark against largely chimerical Islamic fundamentalism, aligning itself with prominent figures in the right-wing Buddhist clergy, and is far from spent.

At the same time, the party remains riven between the old and new guard, as illustrated by last month’s dramatic purge of Lower House Speaker Shwe Mann, the party chair and formerly No. 3–ranked junta general. Shwe Mann apparently paid a price for conciliatory overtures to Suu Kyi, which angered many conservative and military elements within his party.

Meanwhile, other key figures have also departed, including popular President’s Office Minister Aung Min, the government’s chief negotiator with ethnic armed groups, who is widely seen as a moderating force. Along with Soe Thein, an influential former Minister for Industry, Aung Min quitthe USDP to run as an independent after being refused a safe seat.

3. Ma Ba Tha

Radical Buddhist nationalism is increasingly defining postreform Burma. The earlier 969 movement to boycott Muslim businesses and services has grown into the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, commonly known by its Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha. It crusades for Buddhist supremacy and Buddhist-Muslim apartheid. “It’s led by some of the biggest abbots in the country,” says David Mathieson, senior researcher on Burma for Human Rights Watch.

Four pieces of highly discriminatory legislation were passed in July, forbidding interfaith marriages, prohibiting Buddhist women (but not men) from changing their religion, restricting the number of children designated groups can bear, and outlawing polygamy. “They basically want to control women’s bodies,” says Mathieson.

Ma Ba Tha is growing increasingly influential, claiming (although the facts are widely disputed) to have 250 chapters and 10 million members around the country. Ma Ba Tha remains close to the UDSP — party officials are not shy about donating large sums to the cause — and has aimed barbs at the NLD. Cognizant of the group’s swelling influence, even Suu Kyi has refused to outright condemn its unashamedly bigoted agenda.

4. Rohingya genocide

The plight of Burma’s million-strong Rohingya Muslim minority underscores the limits of reform. Deemed “one of the world’s most persecuted peoples” by the U.N., around 140,000 Rohingya currently fester in squalid displacement camps in western Arakan state after pogroms began flaring up in May 2012. Deprived of adequate food, shelter and medical supplies, thousands have attempted to flee in rickety boats, often cast adrift by people-smugglers.

During the last widely condemned elections in 2010, the central government cynically bestowed voting rights on the Rohingya, who expressed support for the USDP. But they only did this for the politically expedient goal of seeing off the challenge of the ethnic Rakhine parties, the Rohingya’s longtime foe. This even saw some Rohingya MPs in parliament.

This year, those voting rights have been stripped away and no Rohingya have been allowed to register as candidates. This has led to an “unparalleled tide of despair,” says Matthew Smith, founder of the Fortify Rights NGO, who has just returned from three weeks documenting the human-rights situation in Rakhine state. “People are planning to take to the seas again.” Sadly, the partly U.S.-funded Union Election Commission has not overturned the Rohingya’s state-level systematic disenfranchisement.

5. Ethnic unease

Burma boasts 135 official ethnicities — although the Rohingya were axed from this list in 1982, depriving them of even that bare minimum of recognition.

The nation’s seven main ethnic groups boast namesake states that share frontiers with Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. Virtually since independence in 1948, these minorities — currently comprising a third of Burma’s 51 million population — have complained of persecution by the central government, which is dominated by the Bamar ethnic group. Aligned rebel militias have waged the world’s longest running civil war to seek greater autonomy. The Burmese military, in turn, has exploited the specter of Balkanization to maintain its grip on power.

Clashes continue unabated despite recent peace talks, particularly in Kachin and Shan states by the Sino-Burmese border. As a result, more than 300,000 people have been displaced since President Thein Sein took power and reforms began. This is in addition to the 140,000 refugees that languish in nine main camps across the Thai border, many having been there since the 1980s.

Sporadic violence entails the likely suspension of voting in constituencies where security cannot be guaranteed. Already marginalized communities thus feel excluded from the democratic transition. Frustration is building. “The local populations have more animosity towards the Tatmadaw [Burmese armed forces] now than we’ve seen in a very long time,” says Smith, “Elections are only going to increase tensions.”

At the same time, ethnic parties maintain largely cohesive support in their home states, and could team up to become a political force within the new parliament, perhaps striking a deal with the NLD, with which they share the goal of a federal state with power devolved to the regions. This would certainly worry military figures, who profit from exploiting jade, teak and other natural resources found in regional areas. But then it is the military that ultimately decides whether peace deals remain intact, and votes go ahead.

6. Economic faltering

Burma’s return to the international fold saw a rash of Western businesses jostling to exploit the nation’s cheap workforce, abundant natural resources and enviable geographical position between regional superpowers India and China. Although there have been certain cosmetic changes, such as shiny new cars on the streets of Rangoon, the rolling back of economic sanctions has not heralded the kind of resurgence many expected.

Professor Sean Turnell, an expert on Burmese economics at Australia’s Macquarie University, says the stalling was due to pre-election politicking and the lobbying of powerful regime cronies opposed to increased competition. This “was all made manifest by the surprising number of significant economic bills left ‘unpassed’ when the parliament was closed down at the end of August,” says Turnell, citing Burma’s “antediluvian” system of bank regulation and Company Law that dates back to a Colonial Act of 1914. Tellingly, though, while the government lacked the energy to push much-needed economic legislation, “it did find time to pass all four discriminatory and divisive religious laws,” adds Turnell.

7. A jittery military

The hope that November’s elections will be free and fair is curtailed by the constitutional stipulation that 25% of seats remain reserved for armed-forces personnel, giving the powerful military an effective veto over constitutional amendments, which require over 75% of lawmakers to pass. “They’ve already stuffed 25% of the ballots,” says Mathieson. Shwe Mann’s support for changing this clause most likely lay behind his purge, say observers, who remain divided on how much influence former junta supremo Senior General Than Shwe still wields in retirement. Certainly, the generals are not satisfied to be confined to the barracks, and should the ballot box throw up an unpalatable result, they may be spurred to intervene once again. Should the NLD perform well, another coup cannot be ruled out.

Communities living in the countries in darker colors in the map are at greater risk of state-led mass violence, according to a think tank connected to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

On Monday, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide launched a tool aimed at forecasting the risk of state-led mass killings. The Early Warning Project tracks the apparent signs of a potential pogrom or assault on minorities within a state. Its findings stitch annual statistical risk assessments of individual countries — based on a number of models conceived by political scientists — alongside crowd-sourced opinion surveys of regional experts.

The 10 countries at the highest risk of experiencing a future episode of mass killing are as follows: 

• Myanmar 
• Nigeria 
• Sudan 
• Central African Republic 
• Egypt 
• Democratic Republic of Congo 
• Somalia 
• Pakistan 
• South Sudan 
• Afghanistan 

Earlier this year, WorldViews talked to Cameron Hudson, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center, about the threat in Burma (also known as Myanmar). Hudson had been part of a fact-finding mission to the country, studying the risks faced by the beleaguered Rohingyas, a Muslim minority that's been rendered stateless by decades of discriminatory Burmese policies.

A report concluded then that the Rohingya were a people "at grave risk for additional mass atrocities and even genocide."

"We’re very cautious when we invoke the term 'genocide,' knowing that it can be quite polarizing and sometimes even unhelpful," said Hudson at the time. "But there is a combination of factors — many of which you saw in 1930s Germany and 1990s Rwanda — that are quite concerning."

The project now is anchored in the Holocaust Museum's moral mission to educate against and prevent future atrocities, says Michael Chertoff, former secretary of Homeland Security and chairman of the museum's Committee on Conscience, in an e-mailed news release.

"No longer can governments say that they 'did not know' as a means of justifying their inaction," he said.