Myanmar's next national elections - more than two years away - are already preoccupying the country's leaders and the opposition. "Everyone is focused on 2015," said a Myanmar government official, who declined to be identified. "All the parties have started to gear up for the next election campaign."
The semi-independent Election Commission met earlier this month to start preparing for the polls.
"These elections will be free and fair," promised the commission chairman Tin Aye, during a meeting with representatives from civil society. The commission is already preparing lists of eligible voters, he added.
Privately he has asked the UN to hand over the next year's census research details when they are available to help with the preparation of voter rolls _ though this directly contravenes the UN's agreement with the Myanmar government.
In fact, "election fever" is also causing bureaucratic inertia in government, said a western diplomat on condition of anonymity; nothing is happening as the government is preoccupied with how to win the next elections, in the face of the popularity of the main opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
At the same time President Thein Sein is on an international diplomatic charm offensive, according to both diplomats and analysts in Myanmar _ in the hope of attracting foreign investment to help drive his ambitious development plans.
"This is crucial for the country, though only partially successful so far," said Sean Turnell, an expert in Myanmar's economy at Australia's Macquarie University.
"While there is new investment in the extractive sectors, foreign investors are still shying away from other areas which could create enterprises that would boost Myanmar's growth and employment because of the country's pervasive uncertainties."
One of those imponderables is the outcome of the next election and how the campaign is conducted.
"No matter what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi does in the next two years, she and her party will win 80% of the seats," a group of former government ministers and officials believe. The love affair with The Lady is far from over, according to their assessment. Officially, the government is not as pessimistic. The president still believes it will be a neck-and-neck race, with the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) having more than a 50% chance of being returned to power, according to his political advisors.
But the senior policymakers and strategists within the USDP are more worried. "Aung San Suu Kyi is going to give us a real problem at the next polls," Kyaw Thura, head of the public relations department of the party, told the Bangkok Post recently. "She's riding high at the moment."
But, he said, "we can regain the peoples' trust; we have more than two years to prove to the electorate that we are a capable government and can deliver on our promises to make life better for all Myanmar citizens".
On the streets of the former capital, Yangon, public sentiment is divided. "In the end people will vote for the government, because it is stable and has done a reasonable job; it is better than the unknown," said Thet Aung, a 20-year old law student at Yangon University.
"She's badly damaged her reputation with her lack of leadership during the country's ethnic and communal problems over the past year," Aung Gyi, a community worker in the city, said of Mrs Suu Kyi. "But there is no one else to vote for if we really want an end to all military rule."
Mrs Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), though, is very upbeat at the moment. "It's not a matter of winning, but by how much," the NLD spokesman Nyan Win told the Bangkok Post in a recent interview. He said the party's first national congress was so successful that it has set the stage for the party to go from strength to strength in the campaign to win the next elections.
"I keep telling people they think too much about on 2015," Mrs Suu Kyi told the Bangkok Post in an exclusive interview.
"What is important is what happens between now and 2015.
"I am not going to say we are not interested in power. We are interested in power for the simple reason that unless we have power we cannot make the changes we want to make."
Although the three-day meeting in Yangon at the beginning of March did not specifically discuss the selection of constituency candidates, nor the party's political platform, the NLD has made the necessary organisational changes that will help it fight the next elections, said one of the senior NLD leaders, U Tin Oo. The new 15-member central executive committee, led by Mrs Suu Kyi herself, will now lay out the strategy for the election campaign and put in motion a selection process for the candidates who will fight the polls in 2015.
"The national party meeting has galvanised the party and has brought young people in, who will give the party a fresh feel without eroding the traditional values and spirit that the party was built on," said Win Thein, an MP and new member of the central executive committee. This is all part of the party's succession planning, he said.
A great start was made at the by-elections last year, with an overwhelming number of elected MPs under the age of 45. The 70-year-old politician laughed and said: "I'm the only old codger in parliament representing the NLD."
But most analysts believe that the NLD has been carried away with its overwhelming victory in last year's by-elections _ winning 43 out of the 44 seats they contested. The results were a shock to everyone, including the NLD leaders themselves.
European diplomats at the time were certain that the NLD would not win more than 50% of the seats. The veteran and outspoken NLD leader, Win Tin, said he also thought they would be lucky to get any more than half of the seats they contested. "Even The Lady in her most optimistic mood only thought we'd win 60% of the seats," he added.
"This was a one-off victory for the NLD," said Khin Maung Swe, leader of the National Democratic Force, another democratic opposition party. This will not be the case in 2015, especially as this time the elections will also be held in ethnic areas, where the local ethnic parties _ Chin, Kachin, Karen, Shan and Mon _ are likely to enjoy a sizeable vote. In many ways the by-elections were a referendum on the previous period of military rule, according to Myanmar analysts.
This doesn't mean that they wouldn't support the NLD in the case that the next elections produce a hung parliament. "Of course we'd support the NLD, though we would have to discuss it with The Lady first," Khun Htun Oo, the leader of the Shan Nationalities for Democracy Party which won most of the seats in the Shan area in 1990 and were the second largest party-elect after the NLD, told the Bangkok Post recently. "We would never support the USDP, under any circumstances," he insisted.
There are also now many new parties, including ethnic parties, that are throwing their hats into the ring. The party formed by Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent 88 student leader and activist, may prove to be the most formidable. It is selecting candidates at present and formulating party policy. But so far, said Ko Ko Gyi, they had not decided how many constituencies to contest or which electorates to fight. He said he was open to discussing an electoral alliance with the NLD and other democratic parties.
So the scene is now set for a tense struggle in the lead up to the next elections. The campaign has begun in earnest, according to Myanmar analysts. Winning the next election is likely to weigh heavily on both the government and the opposition as they vie for power and influence in order to convince the electorate that they are worthy of their vote in 2015.