YANGON, Myanmar — Nearly a decade into Myanmar’s transition out of military rule, the country’s once-celebrated transition toward democracy is hardening into something very different from what activists and world leaders had hoped for.

Citizens select their leaders, but without the robust institutions or norms like pluralism, universal rights or tolerance necessary for democracy to function.

They express, in surveys and social media, desire for a strongman-style leader and raw majority rule. Democracy, many say, should be guided by religious strictures and nationalism.

The military’s ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group, is popular, as are social controls against journalists and minorities.