“The contest and competition for power and for authority in national politics have never ceased,” said Yun Sun, an analyst of China-Myanmar relations at the Washington-based Stimson Center. In fact, she said, they had intensified since Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide election victory in 2015.
While the 2015 vote resulted in Suu Kyi becoming Myanmar’s state counsellor – and de facto leader in the eyes of the world – she remained barred from the presidency and hobbled by a constitution that had been drafted by the military years before to ensure it retained control over key ministries.
