Significance: The military regime of Myanmar on Saturday (13 November) freed opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in her lake-side villa, where she spent around 15 out of the past 21 years. Her release came less than a week after Myanmar held its first general election in two decades.

Implications: Her release does not signal a significant shift in Myanmar's politics. The military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) puts the national security imperative above all other concerns, and as such her release more likely means that the SPDC no longer views her, and indeed the opposition, as a serious security threat.

Outlook: Suu Kyi signalled in her speeches at the weekend that she has no intention of leaving the political arena. But although expectations are high, there are limits as to what she will be able to do. The political environment remains highly restrictive, and the military will not hesitate to lock her up again if it perceives Suu Kyi to overstep the line. However, areas in which Suu Kyi could effect some change in the near-to-medium term include calls for weakening and removal of sanctions, the preventing of civil war between ethnic minority groups and the military, and the raising of the political capital of the opposition.

Myanmar’s military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) on Saturday (13 November) released opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, with officials saying that her release was "unconditional". Suu Kyi spent around 15 out of the past 21 years under house arrest, with the latest seven-year stretch having started with an attack on her and her convoy in 2003. After her release, thousands of supporters flocked to her house to listen to her first speech after her release on Saturday. In her speech she suggested that she has no intention of giving up politics, saying to her supporters that "we must work together in unison". In a second speech, given at the headquarters of the now-defunct National League for Democracy (NLD) yesterday, she furthermore hinted at seeking dialogue with the country's military rulers.

Her release was widely hailed by the international community. Tomas Ojea Quintana, the United Nations' (UN) special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, praised her release as "not only important because of her own destiny, but also because it could symbolise a real start for the improvement of the human rights situation". U.K. prime minister David Cameron and U.S. president Barack Obama also welcomed the weekend's developments, but criticised that her release was "long overdue".

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD, dissolved in May 2010), and the daughter of independence martyr Aung San, who was assassinated during negotiations with the British in 1947. She has remained an icon of peaceful resistance—which earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990—despite constant harassment and long periods under house arrest.

Outlook and Implications

Expectations are high on Suu Kyi to effect political change in Myanmar that has been ruled by successive military dictatorships since 1962. Although she will be very limited in what she can do given the restrictive political environment, she could attempt to revise her party's pro-sanctions stance, work towards reconciliation with aggrieved ethnic minority groups, and seek to increase the political capital of the opposition that has come to be deeply divided over the past years over disagreements over which policies and strategies to pursue.

Increasing the Opposition's Political Capital

That the SPDC resolved to discontinue Suu Kyi's house arrest, a move that came just days after the first general election in two decades, shows that it no longer views her, and indeed the entire opposition, as a major threat. Indeed, over the past months and years the SPDC has systematically worked to deprive the opposition of any meaningful chance to gain significant political say. Restrictive electoral laws and general harassment have not least spurred disagreements within the opposition, both domestic and exiled, as to what strategies and policies to pursue, circumstances that have further weakened the opposition. Suu Kyi, whose words were over the past decades willingly taken up by her many followers, has taken up a central role in opposition politics in Myanmar over the past two decades. However, detached from the ground realities for several years, her policy recommendations were increasingly being questioned over the past years. Especially controversial were her call for sanctions, among others, as well as her decision to boycott last week's polls. Most recently, this was indicated when factions of the now-defunct National League for Democracy (NLD) broke off to form the National Democratic Front (NDF), openly disagreeing with Suu Kyi's and the NLD's stance to boycott the election.

After Suu Kyi's release, things appear to be working towards a re-unification of opposition forces on two fronts. Firstly, even those opposition forces that have advocated for making the most of the limited political space that was made available to them ahead of last week's election have cried fraud and called for the election results not to be accepted. Secondly, Suu Kyi can be expected to refine her party's policies and strategies to make them more applicable to the current political reality in Myanmar. Both developments are likely to strengthen the democratic opposition, and in her speech yesterday, Suu Kyi made clear that she would seek unity within the opposition camp, saying that "I want to work with all democratic forces" and pleading to break-away factions to "please keep your energy for us", adding that "if we work together we will reach our goal". In return, the NDF signalled, also yesterday, that it is ready to co-operate with Suu Kyi.

Possible Weakening of Sanctions

Under house arrest, Suu Kyi was largely cut off from the outside world. Severed phone lines and limited information flow meant that there were limits to which she was able to reach decisions, leading many to question her recommendations. Suu Kyi will now be able, for the most part, to access critical information on current and recent developments in Myanmar, and thus reach more informed conclusions. This could lead to a re-think on key policy issues, and could in particular include calls on some Western states to reduce or even call off their sanction regimes. While she was careful to fix her position in her speech yesterday, she suggested that she might re-think her former pro-sanctions stance, saying that "if the people really want sanctions to be lifted, I will consider it".

For now, it still remains to be seen to what extent she will really advocate a weakening or lifting of sanctions, but in many respects this is what foreign investors have been waiting for. Given that Suu Kyi still enjoys broad popular support, calls for a weakening of sanctions would unlikely fall on deaf ears internationally; not least, this would weaken vocal pressure groups that have pointed to Suu Kyi's statements as a justification for Western states to maintain or increase sanctions. Should the future quasi-civilian government make certain other concessions, e.g. with regard to the release of political prisoners, this could lead to major shifts in bilateral relations with many Western countries. In other words, such developments would not only enable businesses to operate in Myanmar that would have been barred from doing so before, but would importantly reduce or remove the reputational risks for companies wanting to undertake business there.

Preventing Civil War

There are dozens of armed ethnic minority groups that have retained their weaponry and have continued to pose a threat to stability in the border regions that have been wrecked by insurgencies since 1948. While some groups have signed ceasefires with the SPDC over the past two decades, there are fears that these arrangements could disentangle over the failure of a number of groups to disarm and join the government’s Border Guard Force (BGF). Such fears were spurred when the formation of alliances between armed ethnic minority groups were formed to provide for better military capabilities in the case of an attack of the Myanmar armed forces (Tatmadaw), and when fighting broke out in the border town of Myawaddy just hours after polling stations closed last week.

The prospect for a political solution to the crisis remains slim. For much of the country's democratic opposition as well as many ethnic minority groups the root cause of the conflict is constitutional, and indeed ethnic minorities have had little say in the country's unitary state structure. The basic demand of most of the ethnic minorities is a sort of federal state structure, which the central government has categorically rejected as it views federalism as a first step for minority groups to secede, and thus a recipe for a "break-up of the union". There is very little offered to minority groups in the 2008 Constitution (apart from provincial legislatures that will have some ethnic minority representation), which is why so many ceasefire groups chose to boycott the election. Given that the military is set to continue to wield much of the executive power after the election, little change in that respect can be expected. A political solution that incorporates constitutional changes seems therefore highly unlikely.

Given that Suu Kyi has in the past worked towards reconciliation with aggrieved ethnic minority groups, her release holds the promise that minority groups could take less drastic steps in the aftermath of the election. This could work, for example, if Suu Kyi continues to advocate for the holding of a second Panglong Conference (the first Panglong conference was held in 1947 and secured several ethnic minorities' backing for independence from Britain). Most armed ethnic minority groups have over the past two decades put tremendous trust into Suu Kyi and her ability to secure more rights for them.

Despite Release, Political Environment Remains Restrictive

While certainly positive news, Suu Kyi's release does not signal in any way a change of heart of Myanmar's military rulers. After the election, in which the pro-junta USDA claims to have won around 80% of all seats, the political environment remains restrictive, and the SPDC's decision to release Suu Kyi is more likely to have been prompted by their belief that she no longer poses a threat to national security, arguably the overriding concern of the military. In this sense, it now remains to be seen to what extent the future quasi-civilian government will allow Suu Kyi to operate, and successes on above mentioned issues will be dependent on that. As the past has shown, there is also always the possibility of the SPDC sending Suu Kyi back under house arrest should she be perceived as too much of a security threat; the precedent of 1995 and 2002, when she was both times freed and re-detained are testimony to this. This suggests that she will have to tread carefully, balancing the need to reform policies and strategies of the opposition, work towards national reconciliation and at the same time minding to not overstep the patience of the military. On the face of it, this means that in the short-to-medium term, little change in the status quo of Myanmar politics can be expected, and in the long term, it remains to be seen whether she will succeed in raising the opposition's political capital to contest in future elections that could be freer and fairer than those last week. For now, it appears that her supporters' expectations by far exceed what she will be able to do.