Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other top officials have come under fire for being granted prime real estate in the capital at preferential prices under a state program, contradicting their reformist pledges to shun perks of power in a country impoverished by decades of misrule.
As former opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi said her National League for Democracy (NLD) would not accept preferential treatment as government officials, while most ordinary citizens struggled with poverty — part of a platform that won general elections in 2015 by a landslide.
During an interview with RFA’s Myanmar Service in 2014, Aung San Suu Kyi said NLD leaders would not accept state-sponsored perks, including land plots upon retirement.
“My party will not accept such provisions,” she said at the time.
“Besides, we don’t want such rewards at a time when most of our people are struggling to secure their farmlands,” she said. “Our party members are so used to uphill struggles.”
With politics heating up in the run-up to the next election in November, social media accounts told of the 75-year-old leader and top officials buying cut-rate plots in the capital Naypyidaw as large as eight acres (3.2 hectares).
The chatter prompted President’s Office spokesman Zaw Htay to clarify on June 20 that State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other officials were allowed to buy small parcels of land at preferential prices in the capital region, following a retirement practice in Naypyidaw.
“It is true that the land plots are being granted for government members, but the news on social media is pretty exaggerated,” he told a news conference.
“It must be a disinformation campaign as the 2020 election approaches,” he added.
Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint were each permitted to buy plots of 400 square feet, while government ministers could purchase 300 square feet, and deputy ministers could acquire 250 square feet, Zaw Htay said.
“There is a tradition that the state provides land plots to government officers when they retire,” he said.
Zaw Htay did not specify the designated prices. RFA was unable to reach the Naypyidaw Development Committee, which creates and prices the retiree plots, to confirm the size and the cost of the land parcels set aside for government officials.
‘Unfair practices’
There have been no accusations of wrongdoing by the NLD leaders, but critics said the election year optics were poor, given their reformist pledges and the fact that Myanmar ranks last in nominal per capita GDP of the 10 members of ASEAN.
Older Myanmar voters remember how General Than Shwe, head of the military junta that ruled Myanmar from 1992-2011, built a sprawling estate in Naypyidaw and shocked his country with a lavish 2006 wedding party in Yangon for his daughter that featured her sipping champagne while dressed in layers of pearls and diamonds.
“People voted for NLD party hoping that it would eliminate such unfair practices,” Nyo Nyo Thin, a former independent lawmaker from Yangon region, told RFA.
“If they are legalizing the system of privileged provisions, then the NLD won’t have a good political future,” said Nyo Nyo Thin, founder of the regional government watchdog group Yangon Watch.
“This system has been entrenched in successive governments, and we want NLD to uproot it, not to carry it on,” she added.
Ye Htut, information minister from 2014-16 during former president Thein Sein’s Cabinet, said the inconsistency between words and deeds hurts the reputations of NLD leaders.
“I think it is pretty awful that these [leaders] have broken the pledges they made in the past,” he said. “Receiving land plots from the state is not a problem, but Daw [honorific] Aung San Suu Kyi is breaking her own promise. Because she is a politician, it is damaging to her dignity.”
A member of the opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), Ye Htut noted that the NLD came into office on a promise of solidarity with the people, yet officials have not hesitated to snap up the land at below-market prices.
“Given the fact that the government still cannot resolve the issues like the farmland shortage and widespread squatting in the cities, such rewards are very inappropriate,” he added.
Tin Thit, an NLD lawmaker who represents a constituency in Naypyidaw, defended the actions of his party, saying that it is providing lifelong security for both high-level and low-level government officials in all major cities.
“These rewards are not limited to top government officials,” he said. “There are also land allotment programs, affordable housing, low-income housing, and rental housing programs for low-level staffers.”
“The government is just implementing its policies,” he added.
Reported by Kyaw Lwin Oo for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
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