An Ugly Truth For a ‘Beauty Queen’
March 31st, 2019
On the day of the most publicized Yangon municipal elections in recent memory, a harsh reality unraveled. Despite the level of hype from candidates online and offline, along media outlets that devoted precious airtime to this (contrary to the rationale of election commission chairman U Aung Khine) the election drew a measly 14.77% of eligible voters(at best). For comparison, student union presidents are chosen from a larger percentage of students during election season at universities. What had supposed to have been a show of democratic strength ended up capitulating in the time it had mattered.
The ruling NLD won the relatively anticipated municipal committee seats by a landslide, and as of this moment in writing, U Soe Lwin (who had edged out urban elite favourite Aung Khant) sits as Yangon’s Vice Mayor.
Rather than the low voter turnout (non general elections tend to see dips in turnout figures), the most notable takeaway from this election happens to be: 1) the dubious campaign tactic of using party logos and 2) the lack of proper enforcement of election finance regulations.
In the wake of this, independent candidates that had lost rightly cried unfairness. But of those that lamented the independents’ losses, one comment stuck out-that of Htet Htet Htun, an erstwhile ‘beauty queen’ who ran as an independent. As transcribed in Frontier:
“In Myanmar, the young generation has not been given seats anywhere. I feel that this election breaks our hopes to do our bit for the country.”
This is especially galling to hear as a fellow young person. Yes, the youth candidates of her and Aung Khant had not won seats anywhere. Yet what Htun leaves out in her hissyfit comment is the fact that her campaigning is a minor catalyst to how and why youths had not been considered.
Her campaign logo had been ‘Give us/youth/women a chance.’ Throughout the campaign trail, she had used her gender as a crutch, offering little in the way of actual policy. In Facebook comments that rightfully questioned what she had to bring to the table in terms of policy, she constantly commented the same pre-written message-a reference to Myanmar’s ranking on the Inter Parliamentary Union’s women in parliament percentage.
Not it only had that been a pathetic display of cowardice, it had been an insult to the Yangon electorate. I can safely assume she’d done more harm to the perception of women in politics in Myanmar than she has helped with her campaigning.
Tokenism is something that Myanmar cannot afford at this critical juncture in time. It IS true that female participation in politics should be increased, and female holders of political offices are needed direly.
Yet aspiring female candidates should be judged according to what they bring to the table in terms of ideas, grit, charisma and commitment-none of which had been represented by Htun’s condescending dodging and the entirety of her campaigning.
To add to this, her campaign’s expenditure limits were called to question, though in her defence her she had not been alone in this, abusing the weak electoral governance in this regard.
Here’s the ugly truth, Htet Htet Htun: you were not elected not because you were a youth, but because those Yangonites that turned up to vote had seen through you. They saw what I tell now: an advocate for tokenism that ran an public office campaign like a beauty pageant.
Of course, this is no real loss to Htun-she’ll crawl back to her world of socialite elitism, fake smiles and faker condescension, her profile increased. She’ll appear on a few low quality pseudo-intellectual discussions in print and on TV as a ‘youth leader’ and one who ‘tried but had been let down by the system.’
We don’t need condescending, prima donna beauty queens running Yangon and abusing the label of ‘the young generation,’ and we certainly don’t need the continued peddling of tokenism.
Yangon and Myanmar don’t need professional victims. We need those that will roll their sleeves up and give their all. Not those that will use perceived victimhood as a catapult to greater prominence.
