BURMA: Clean Sweep

Ever since General Ne Win took power in Burma 14 months ago, he has worked conscientiously at clearing Rangoon’s garbage-strewn streets, cracking down on Communist rebels in the northern jungles, improving the balance between the nation’s agriculture and light industry. But he was one soldier who meant his often expressed desire to step down as soon as possible. Burma’s politicians, whose squabbling and corrupt ways led to the military takeover in the first place, got a go-ahead last month with Ne Win’s promise of elections in late January or early February.

Actually Burma’s pols have been electioneering ever since last May, when moonfaced ex-premier U Nu lashed out at army rule (TIME, June 1). U Nu mixes religious meditation and campaign oratory as no one else does: fortnight ago, emerging from 45 days of fasting and contemplation, he coincidentally had a new batch of speeches ready, mixing pleas for devotion with appeals for votes. He stumped hard for his “clean” faction of the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League, which ruled Burma for eleven years. His chief opponents: party dissidents who call themselves the league’s “stable” group, led by 44-year-old “Big Tiger” U Ba Swe, once U Nu’s deputy. U Nu traveled up and down assuring voters that in meditating he “became humble and made new resolutions to become a good man.” His Cleans would “behave like good politicians to merit admission to the higher abode of nirvana,” and he promised if elected to make Buddhism the “state religion.” Last week the Cleans won municipal majorities in eleven major Burmese cities, and in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, U Nu’s forces cleaned out the Stables with a vengeance. U Nu candidates, expecting to win 20 seats in the municipal corporation, swept all 35 seats. Though the elections were local ones, all signs pointed to U Nu’s return to power.