"As a general election draws near in Myanmar, a contest that will pit pro-democracy against military forces, political parties are already preparing for the 2020 race. On September 27, the National League for Democracy (NLD) party that won the 2015 election commemorated its 31st anniversary with a spokesman’s lament that the nation’s democracy was not yet “genuine.” In a gauntlet-dropping pronouncement, NLD delegates gathered in the old capital of Yangon said that the military-drafted 2008 constitution, which grants vast powers to the men in green, must be amended to promote more democracy. At the same time, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, has recently acted more like a politician than both incumbent president Win Myint and nominal national leader State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The military chief, who some suspect has presidential ambitions, has recently visited and donated to Muslim mosques, Christian churches and Hindu temples, in an apparent bid to raise his grass roots profile and soften his public image..."