Center for Myanmar Studies, Yunnan University, Kunming International Workshop on “Myanmar in 2014: Re-integrating into the International Community” July 28-30, 2014 1 Draft Paper (not to be quoted) June 29, 2014 A CLOSER LOOK AT THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND OF MPS IN MYANMAR’S FIRST POST-SPDC NATIONAL LEGISLATURE (2010-2015) Dr. Renaud Egreteau CERI Research Associate, Paris regreteau@hotmail.com A new parliamentary class has emerged almost ex-novo in Myanmar after general elections were held by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in November 2010. Session after session, the new national parliament (or Pyidaungsu Hluttaw when its two chambers convene together) has risen to political prominence, whilst obviously attempting to play a leading role in post-SPDC reform activity (ICG 2013, Kean 2014, Egreteau forthcoming 2014). Parliamentarians – whether elected by the Burmese electorate (75%) or nominated by the commanding heights of the Burmese armed forces for the remaining fourth of them, have gradually contributed to the development of Myanmar’s national legislative body. They now form a rising political “elite” – a first since the 1950s. The first “post-junta” national legislature is however certainly not a mirror image of Myanmar’s current electorate, or even population. In 2010, the sweeping electoral victory of the regime- backed political movement, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), came as no surprise to domestic and foreign observers alike. Despite a realignment provided by the 2012 by-elections and the subsequent entrance in national parliamentary politics of 41 delegates from Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), the domination of the parliament by the USDP has conveyed the general impression that the country’s highest legislative body has been utterly dominated by former army generals and ex- junta bureaucrats, who had merely dropped their uniform in 2011 to adopt the traditional longyis of Burmese civilians and politicians. This paper will challenge this conventional view by simply asking what kinds of Burmese people became legislators after the 2010 and 2012 national polls. To better grasp the new realities of Myanmar’s first post-SPDC legislature, this paper claims it is indeed essential to examine more closely the political and socioeconomic profiles of the 658 parliamentarians sitting there. The study, driven by basic intellectual curiosity, is grounded on about forty interviews carried out with various Members of Parliament (MPs) of different origins, backgrounds, party membership and religion, from both the upper house (Amyotha Hluttaw)