[EAI 온라인 세미나]

YouTube 링크 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njvxNJNVPEk

동아시아연구원(원장 손열)은 여섯 번째 [민주주의 협력] 온라인 세미나 시리즈, “2020 미얀마 총선과 민주주의 전환 전망”을 개최했습니다. 본 회의에서 EAI는 프로젝트 미얀마의 산디거버넌스연구소와 최대 선거 감시단체인 PACE, 독일의 지역학 연구소 GIGA, 싱가포르의 ISEAS 유소프 이사크 멤버들을 패널로 초청하여, 2016년 미얀마에 문민정부가 들어선 이후 두 번째로 치러진 2020년 11월 8일 총선의 결과를 분석하며 미얀마의 민주화와 민주주의의 미래에 관한 토론을 진행했습니다. 본 세미나는 프로젝트 미얀마시민사회역량강화(MDRN)의 프로그램 중 하나로 진행되었습니다.

영상 스크립트

you know this is me um at the east asia institute and also teaching at san given university we organize a special webinar to reflect on the lizard of november is general election in myanmar and also to discuss the prospect of democracy in in this country let me briefly uh report to the participants about the niyama election uh 12 days ago as we all know myanmar suffered uh nearly 50 years of isolations under the very strict military rule but the country went ahead for democratic transition from the uh the midpoint of

2000s as generals military generals began to loosen their hold on power facing a very popular democratization demand the first election was held in 2010 however as we all known aung san tsuki's uh national league for democracy nld boycotted and then energy participate in the next 2015 election and one with the landslide victory and this time again nld won with a huge margin in the bicameral legislative election and can remain in power i checked the website and as of uh yesterday the nld secured 396 seats in

both uh legislature and usdp held only 29 seats and other political parties held a 45 seats so compared you know if we look at this research it's fantastic for uh nld to claim such a huge victory and despite the kobe 19 the myanmar took a free election timely and peacefully so that's i think a great achievement nevertheless there has been criticism calling the election of the float uh by canceling polls in la kaine state some rohingya minority couldn't vote again this is a big issue anyway this time election was seen as a

referendum on aung san tsuki's government and herself and nld seemed to maintain great popularity inside myanmar even as the rohingya crisis damaged their international reputations with this popular mandate would aung san tsuki and nld be able to govern the country more freely with no need to share power with military in particular can they change the constitution to give one third of by camera seats that are controlled by the military to popular voting that's a huge issue too also can popular nld government

persuade niyama people to allow rohingya refugees return home safely and despite this election victory the prospect for myanmar's democratic transition does not seem to be bright to many eyes with the strong power of military generals and also very hawkish nationalistic buddhism yeah you know very exclusive about this uh muslim minority so to discuss these very important issues we invited four distinguished panelists let me introduce them by the academic order of their last name our first panelist is syed swat

mint and he is the executive director of people's alliance for credible elections and kosai was a co-founder and an instructor of politics at the yangon school of political science and also worked as a network officer for the british council thank you for attending this webinar and our second panelist is a richard lover and he's research fellow at the german institute for global and area studies and robert um richard sorry richard is a default candidate in san antonio's college of oxford university and

he is advisor to the model international criminal court myanmar and our third panelist is means she is a research fellow at icas yusuf ishaq afar institute she is leading the institute's miyama program and also advised miyamoto asean chairmanship in year 2014 our last but not least panelist is mr kain win executive director of the sandy governance institute is a leading democratic research and social movement activities for transparency and accountability in the public sector of neon mass i welcome

four distinguished uh panelists okay so let's start our first round of discussion and each panel list can speak about seven minutes and here i'd like to hear your opinion your assessment of november 8 election desert do you have expected this kind of a huge victory for energy if so why what were the major issues this time at the uh general election there and then uh energy government uh some many people say is becoming quite authoritarian but still they seem to be very popular so some say they have a very

rational pragmatic strategy to just to move democracy gradually in for the piece and some people say they are kind of betraying our hope for more more strong democratization way so um to these set of questions i'd like to invite cosi first to to share your views thank you thanks for inviting me uh i mean the regarding the resolve i i think that before the elections the analysts the observers even the broadcast body themselves uh i mean majority of people expected energy will win this election again

but no one's expect this big even i don't think even energy he will expect this big uh a win so this is kind of a huge i think surprise for everyone that's that's for clear but for me uh the recently as you just mentioned that up this in after the elections in this post-election period there are a lot of criticism from the the main opposition party party usgp led by the other political party talking about criticize about the integrity of the library process so i want to touch a bit on that too but before we move for me touching the

other subject we can breaking down into two or two phases of like electrical process pre-election period and then election period so during the apprehension period everybody was concerned about how the elections was going to happen because of kobet 19 and because of the the tension between political parties and the and the and the uec the relationship between puerto ric was very tense so also majority of political party will criticize criticizing about the way uec managing the electoral process and everybody was concerning about the

covet 19 situation because we didn't have this capacity in terms of infrastructure in terms of the preparations so everybody was concerned about this thing at the same time and because of kobe 19 the level playing fee was very uneven within the political party you can see that the the kobe 19 situation put a huge restriction on the political party and candidate movement to reach out their electorate and then uec could not comes up with alternative measures or alternative operators or alternatives

in infrastructure for the political party and candidate to reach out their net free so it creates a huge and even level playing field between income bank and the non-income back political party and then resourceful and non-resourceful political party that's for clear so so i think that uh that made the pre-election period very uneven and then very uh concerned for the for the post election period that's what you're now witnessing about that so so i think that in terms of transparency in terms of level playing

free the book the pre-election period be the pre-election period was very very uh shortcoming in terms of democratic principle that's that's my analysis regarding the prelation period but for the election day we are very fortunate and then we i mean from here i have to acknowledge the po workouts the subcommittee members trying to make sure that everybody was safe and trying to run the election smoothly on election day so on election day was very calm and very smooth then we expect it so that of course there are some there were

some uh administrative uh irregularities there are some mistakes but we didn't see systemic fraud trying to change the outcome of the the whole electoral landscape so i think that if we break it down into two parts the appreciation period is very concerned and from from the democratic perspective it is very it yeah we can see a lot of flaws but on election day was very smooth and i mean like pretty transparent and pretty i mean calm so so i think this is this is what we have right now so i think that the political

party have a legitimate uh concerns regarding and and then they have a legitimate right to looking at the current result and then the the electoral process but for me the result is credible and we could accept we should accept the result one is come to the whole process 315 constituency definitely of course there are some location in some polling station there are uh issues about borderlands issuable of the advanced voting but in terms of the whole process the result is credible we should accept that

that's that's for sure but for the long run i think that it's already sure that it's already proved that the current electoral legal framework doesn't fit the changing political context that's something we need to do first firstly a the way the independent of the of the election commission that's something we need to review seriously but secondly when you look at the result even though energy won the majority it doesn't reflect a minority broadcast exploration so we also need to look at the electoral

system the current system we are using as ptp which may not necessarily i'm not saying that energy he got this majority and it did not he doesn't represent the whole country but there are some minority that still need to be represented at the parliament so if we do if we need to do so we need to change the we need to review the illegals i'm not i don't have the the the the answer right now but something we need to review our current electoral system whether we should go whether we can find a way for more

inclusive uh electoral system in the in the future that do so these two fundamental electoral legal framework structure of the things we need to be we need to be prioritized in the next five year at the on top of this is structural problem we also have the of the the practical issue like like something like the travel restriction and uneven level playing free 90 days voters so that's also something making the the the the disadvantages for the newcomers you know if we can make sure that we're playing free if we can make sure that

their voice has been hard as they are like free there might be some changes at some particular constituency i don't say that the whole electoral landscape will be changed but definitely there are high profile civil society leaders running in some state they had a high political profile i i activists running in some region but because of this situation they were never reaching out their electric they were never their visibility is is is compared to the income bank it's really low so they never had a chance and to do so

so i think that like before we whether we should surprise the not surprise i think that for for me my first impressions and my first analysis in the regarding the process is something like so this is my first analysis regarding the 2000 uh november 8th election in election i'm happy to come back for more more discussion on this thank you i have a very uh very short follow-up question to kosai so so it sounds like you are saying suggesting kobe 19 helped the ruling party uh to win um with more unexpected margin do you agree

the kobe 19 because when this kind of pandemic crisis the voters tend to rally around the government does it help the ruling portal why not what i'm trying to say is because of kobe 19 um some other political parties and some other candidates were not able to reach out so election could should at least shouldn't have been more con competitive but because of kobe 19 it's less competitive than we did because you always you already see that we have political party margin into one in different state

but because of kobe 9 they were never reaching out what they've been planning so i think that this that make disadvantages for the newcomer and make less uh competitive okay in that way help the ruling party okay lichard it's your turn right uh first of all i'd like to say thank you to the east asia institute i'm very glad to be on a panel with people whose work i respect so highly um of course that also is always a difficult task speaking after someone who summarized things uh so very well um i i agree with with

most of what kosai has has said and i'll try and uh and highlight some some different areas um and i think starting maybe with the question why it's not so surprising that the nld has had this kind of victory and i think that's largely because everyone realizes that the election wasn't really very much about politics but rather about personality and this is a dynamic that very much favors the nld because aung san suchi remains by far the most revered politician in vienna and other parties simply

do not have the same level of exposure and this is sort of um even strengthened um by the fact that voters continue to vote for the nld because of its image as the key adversary to the tatmador and this cleavage between uh the civilian power and the military continues to define uh myanmar rather than uh let's say you know sort of detailed policy platforms right and this is also sort of a question right and sort of what is normally you would ask what are the defining political uh elements there for for an election

right what are what is sort of the discussion all about um but i would i would i would go as far as saying it be slightly misplaced to to highlight actual policy promises or something of that sort of uh the defining factors for how constituents decided to to vote um and and this is an important point because this this void of sort of a focus on content is filled with something else and it's filled with campaigns that are highly personality based right and if you look at sort of a lot of the dnld campaigns for

for mps for non-senior um contenders or first-time contender sed campaigns largely revolve around associate associating yourself with aung san tsuji and kind of feeding off uh that popularity um and so you have these personality-based campaigns and at the same time then you have a large degree of misinformation i mean this is something that's currently i think a lot of people are sort of focusing on and looking at the misinformation campaigns that have been going on uh on on social media in myanmar and the

hate speech that sort of attacking individual candidates and there's also a risk especially for the nld with these highly personnel personality-based campaigns because if people connect to you based mostly on who your party leader is rather than uh your content then should the moment come that that leader for whatever reason cannot partake in politics anymore um then you're gonna have a large problem and it's actually something that many people within the nld especially sort of the most senior ranks of the

party fear very greatly is that should that moment arrive there will be a party split and since the nld has this this very you know stronghold on myanmar politics with these majorities in both both uh um chambers of parliament um you this would of course have have grave repercussions also for the political landscape and for the way politics uh would work in the future um do i still have a couple of minutes yeah okay um let's yeah let's talk a little bit about maybe the difference in perception between the

2015 elections and uh the elections now um and there's a question of you know sort of the waning democratic spirit and and sort of the elections now are perceived in a more critical fashion right um and i think the key reason for that is that in 2015 myanmar was to some extent unified by the very high hopes that uh existed for the future uh and many of these hopes like national reconciliation or further retrenchment of military influence uh and greater economic strength um have have pretty much been squashed

now um in myanmar today and i think this is sort of what we're talking about also the aftermath of this uh this actually post-election period we see a myanmar that is extremely divided now you can say okay myanmar has always been divided along uh several uh important lines but you know the the sort of the violent clashes we have seen between party supporters uh at rallies also at it uh you know at the sort of victory rallies and celebration rallies and campaign rallies before uh they be a day bear testament um

to this to these stronger divisions and then also you have an increased problems with problem with the confidence uh in elections itself right and there's still i mean no doubt there's still the confidence is still very strong comparatively but that we see moves like the usdp's uh decision to contest the validity of the election results i mean these are the kind of developments that we all know from countries all over the world serve to undermine uh a population's confidence in uh in in elections in a democratic uh

process and it's been said uh before the first past the post-electoral system um really does not help because it it consolidates the divides uh that do exist um in in myanmar today and it makes it extremely difficult for smaller parties both ethnic or sort of smaller burma focused parties to to gain seed and of course and i think this is this is sort of something we maybe talk a little bit more in the second part um we also have this uh perception of the waning democratic spirit because of the performance of the nld

which has plainly adopted some more autocratic uh governance but it's important here and this will be my last sentence to always be aware that there's a different level if if sort of myanmar observers and researchers and people who work for sort of civil society organizations talking about artists who will raise these issues or whether we're talking about uh constituents voters in general who i think is fair to say today still very much feel that the nld uh protects democracy and they wouldn't feel that there's a waning

democratic spirit thank you richard now let's turn to mo mo both kosai and lichard have discussed it uh this now is time to reform the electoral system in myanmar uh for example each other mentioned this first fast post rule is giving more power to big uh ruling party so maybe is there any debate about the introducing proportional uh portion of the electoral dubai you followed elections of myanmar a long time so i'm sure you have many things to say please go ahead thank you very much professor lee and

i'd also like to add my thanks to uh to kosai and richard who spoke before me uh to uh to express our appreciation to the east asia institute for uh inviting us to share our thoughts about myanmar's elections and the democratic transition uh in in the context of that um let me just um add on to to what gosia and richard mentioned about the surprise not surprise element of the elections i think it was it was clear um to to all of us that the nod would receive a second mandate that was a certainty but

the surprise element if any i think was you know the different views that existed among commentators analysts and so on about um the extent of that returned mandate and of course now we we have seen that it is a resounding mandate um with an overhearing majority that is uh even higher than the uh the previous historic win in 2015. so let me just say here that you know it was it was myanmar's largest democratic exercise and and as kosai mentioned too it was largely a safe and fair exercise for the

over 30 million voters who participated in it and of course we also have to acknowledge uh the different aspects and uh experiences of this uh this historic vote um because um the the the uh the surprise factor i think also was uh maybe the the voter turnout um that was more for external observers and i think people in myanmar who were quite certain that there would be a high turnout and um both richard and kosai have also touched on the disenfranchised voters yes there were people who could not vote at all

and topmost in the international communities mine would be the rohingya communities in myanmar and in the refugee camps but there were also many people in several ethnic areas across the country where voting was cancelled for security reasons so uh for them you know there was no participatory experience and the landslide win would have been more abstract so what i'm saying is yes this is unfortunate but it it still does not disqualify the democratic mandate received by the incumbent so so this is where i'd like to pick up

on what gosai and richard were talking about what lies ahead for the democratic transition about about you know further improving and developing the the democratic institutions um so that the democratic processes in myanmar will be more inclusive and participatory and and and and uh become a level playing field for all citizens um definitely that that that is important because you know the exercise of democracy is not just elections you know good elections don't necessarily translate into um democracy all by itself although

elections are an important part an important ritual of democracy and and of course you know uh then you'd start looking at the kind of binary choices and decisions that people made um in in 2015 and again overwhelmingly in 2020 um citizens want democracy and the simple message i think that was very clear at the 2020 vote was we are voting for nld because we do not want a larger role of the military uh in in the country's political uh life anymore so so basically this this it boiled down to that and um i would see that that you know

this will be another starting point to to continue uh promoting and entrenching uh the democratic institutions including that kind of civic and education on what democracy means as in you know um making that informed choice so you asked me about this uh first-past-the-post um uh system that that richard also raised in terms of what needs to change in future uh for the country's democratic transition um there have been discussions in the parliament during the administration of the uh usdp of the union solidarity

development party uh government over 2011 to 2015 there were some uh discussions mooted in the parliament then on uh whether the the uh the electoral system and this uh first pass of post versus uh proportional representation uh you know should be considered and and so i would say that that discussion has started but i think uh it's still a work in progress in the sense that there needs to be i think more more of that informed discussion and debate on uh what are the pluses and minuses of an fptp of of a first-past-the-post system

what would be the pluses and minuses for proportional representation in a country that is quite diverse such as myanmar and how that would translate into the different um state and regional level assemblies as well of course in you know if you look at it simply um we inherited that first possible system uh from the british and it was written into the 2008 constitution which of course uh then also needs to be uh reviewed revisited and and that's another i think important priority platform that uh the nrd government

has um has committed to since 2015 as well as uh for the current platform so what i'm trying to say here is that um the the arguments for and against are still going on um but of course myanmar going for a multi-party uh democratic system and this was something that was announced when the burma socialist program party decided to to step down to step aside and then introduce democracy or a multi-party a democracy type of system so they use multi-party democracy which means there are more than two parties

whereas if you see the first past the post system in practice it would be say for example what we have seen in uh in the united states so so again i i think there needs to be that kind of crucial conversation that continues on what model fits myanmar best and it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other but something that actually responds to the very unique uh peculiar circumstances of myanmar's diverse communities thank you mo i guess uh three previous panelists have discussed a lot about how you can reform your election

law and rules and kind but to my mind even before you discuss in how many for the first passports the constituency voting and how many portions of proportional boarding that's more secondary than the more primary issue of how we can turn one-third of seats under the popular voting so military cannot designate their chosen people to one-third of bicameral legislature but it seems like there's no such debate yet so so can you share your thoughts on this issue too you need a mute kind thanks thanks for inviting me thank you

dr lee actually uh the can you hear me yeah but just speak a little loudly yes louder yeah okay yeah actually i i agree with uh cosign and and and um actually because fine pointed out pointed out about the about the integrity of the election pre-pre-election so i agree with him and actually this institutional landscape was created for me was created not by nld actually by the by the military so the all of us not all the other political parties they they are they are playing under under the under

the 2008 constitution so that's i think one one disadvantage for them for the small body especially for the ethnic mind minority so and definitely the the electoral system and uec now you see the institutional change so so it's it's required so we we have to you know we have to change that maybe at that but we we need consensus so we need to discuss about the about about these issues no in the in in in the parliament both in inside and outside outside parliaments in a both formal and informal way

i think that i think that that's very important with the ruling government they need to create now space for for for discussing these issues not informally and formal formally at the same time but uh but actually here actually i want to discuss about public perception public perception and elite elite perception that's because i travel extensively in 2019 2018 all over the country so actually i know the victory we could expect we could explain it as uh cosign men mentioned but we didn't i did not expect anybody would

win that many that many seeds but i i could expect that it would win now it would especially in the bombing majority majority regions so actually uh what i want to explain is energy victory doesn't depend entirely on don sansuji personality so i want to point out this fact actually it also depends on on on on the public perception and its performance so when when i visited rural rural rural areas and and small towns so i met with people and usually i discussed and and i asked them what do you think of now what do you

think of an and any government so they are also everywhere there they are also issued but generally they they actually they like and they support it well they supported energy because because in terms of infrastructure so it's it's very obvious that roads and roads now roads are better than a lot better than before so usually that's why i think that so we we need to be aware that ordinary people they are not they they they support energy because of its budget budget expenditure so usually the public opinion is before

but before 2050 20 of the uh budget would be you know was spent spent but 80 percent put into the pocket something like eighty percent of the budget was spent for the for the community development but twenty percent may be wasted so that kind of opinion people have i think that's why uh they already they won now they want this election change but we don't we do not expect but at the same time at the same time structural factors also we we need to take into account actually before but before before the election several

think that including international crisis grew uh asia asia foundation and my my my friend christian stokes from oslo university they also yeah actually they have written non-written paper articles about electoral resistance and political parties in myanmar so they pointed out the fact that even the merging of ethnic party will not address address the problem of the the national national party winning winning majority seats that's it in in the election because now because of the structural conditions

usually when you look at the previous history 1990 2000 2010 2015 usually bigger party national national party they they they won they won the mature they won the majority but uh the although the the ending minority composed of thirty percent of the population not population but usually they they won only fifteen percent fifteen percent of the seas but this time not this time in my opinion they performed better than before now so far is that my snld they became became programmatic party so they embraced

all all other not all the minority group now within within they are within their uh constituency so they can now they they could perform well and more unity party also they the the party also they want more seats than before so it's a it's a long long-term process but the in this election i think the the main problem is at uec so you see maybe i have to put a put up late on uec you you see in in pre-election period uec was not acting like an independent commission that's a that's a problem that's a

problem but now as you know annually also as a ruling party in this maybe they they would see it as a game now they would see it as a game and then the rule of the game was created by the military so they may they might have taken advantage of it they can take an advantage of it in my opinion several not several people actually political party also holding a party also they were encouraging and uh ruling government and uec to postpone not to postpone the election because of the kobe 19 situation but

in my opinion did not usually also didn't possible might be the reason might be they want to gain they want to gain the legend messy legitimacy again strong legitimacy again to to not to continue to implement major major reforms political social economic economic reform that's fine but now nadine recently energy issued a statement actually telling telling the people are telling the political ethnic political party that they they are on the same page they were actually the exploration of the ethnic

political party political party and energy are the are the same so they want to work well they want to cooperate they want to work together so i think i don't think democratic no wayne democratic spirit is waning i think uh actually the people some people the majority of maybe the ethnic minority group may be may be saying that uh only only the bomb and much majority is uh because of the majority rule so we will energy one or something like that but actually the people can express their desire for democratization

that's why i don't think that the democratic spirit is waning me i think that the democratic spirit is actually increasing so we are actually thinking about long term okay uh thank you very kind uh to hear that the democracy is not raining at all actually it has been more strengthened and you know i collected the four excellent questions i think a kind already alluded to these questions let me pose three questions to to kosai and richard and more um i guess as uh kainen has alluded briefly some participant

raises issue of integrity of election criticizing the uh u uh the union election committee uh saying that it is bias so we need to change the procedure of you know setting up and reforming uec so maybe if cosi can answer this question will be good and then a second question uh i think maybe to lichard um that's about this sne minority and and one of the participants has uh emphasized that the nld won many seats in ethnic states like the qin kachin and kane states so doesn't mean that it energy support uh secured support

from ethnic minorities so therefore this election uh did it empower the essence minority or not so if the child can answer this one that would be nice and to the sort of questions to more um and reminding the barack obama's mentioning in 2012 when he visited the yangon university staying the near mars geopolitical significance so therefore with this popular uh mandate good energy can exercise a more uh stronger foreign policy like to attending isaf or the striking big ftas and also or they're strengthening their position uh in this

uh delicate china-india relations as it is question of a foreign policy so let's uh start with the kosai about this independence of this uh commission sure uh i mean the these electoral legal frameworks uh was initiated and approved in 2008 with along with 2008 it means that it's usg sbtc the former sbtc has been has was the one who formulate this like the law so the lord was not the law was not meant to move forward with democratic process the law just kind of moving from sbdc to some kind of of semi civilian government it's kind of

transitional document from one regime to another regime so it's it's very centralized even though it doesn't mean it doesn't mean to it was not meant to control the result but it meant to control the process that's why the way the the election commission appointed was very centralized the president nominated and then the parliament needed to prove so it was not impossible to parliament to reject the president nomination so that was the case but in the last five year nad has been facing this issue

before 2014. and he was the one who criticized a lot about this the previous union election commission but during the last five year energy doesn't touch anything on that and no political body touch on this issue that's why we face this issue in 2019 and 2020.

that's that was the case so i think that it's not i mean majority of the people were saying that the personality of the uec members uh was the case i don't think it is the personality can be changed easily but the thing is a legal framework so definitely we need to find a way how to make sure the union election commission's member of the union the union election commissions are independent there are two ways one thing is you need we need to change the constitution i'm not sure whether this is possible in

the next four year or five year that's something but if we can't change the constitution there are some mechanisms to make sure that the uec are more independent and and and non-partisan something like the president can create a mechanism to select to collect the name for the nomination and the president can and the parliament of the president can create a mechanism to select from the nomination and making sure that the uec is more independent it's kind of there are a lot of issues i mean like options if you want to change

we just need a political world we doesn't need for the long run definitely we need a constitutional reform but before that there are so many options we can adopt to make sure that ubc are more independent and non-partisan and more credible thank you richard are you comfortable for this claim that the energy got the mandate from ethnic minorities because they won in the ethnic states but you know i read that in la kaine state because lohini agree was excluded from exercising their voting rights there is a rebel group is forming uh

so there'll be more uh conflict with the ruling party and the military so what's your assessment i mean i certainly you know wouldn't support this kind of broad statement i think the first thing to keep in mind is that it's not always useful i mean we we sometimes we have to use this term ethnic minorities um but it's actually not often often it's not a very useful term because i mean that's it's a it's that's a extremely diverse group of containing different interests different um traditions cultures uh and and so also different

allegiances right i mean there's some ethnic groups if you consider for example the issue who are traditionally more allied to the usdp because of grievances they have with another ethnic minority um and you have um you have some uh i think most most other ethnic minorities who strive for sort of um their own uh political parties but you know and we've been sort of through this uh it's not a unitary category even within a large ethnic group so sometimes you have multiple parties that try and win the votes of the same group and

then you you have vote splits occurring which in the first past the post system gives the advantage uh to dnld and i mean this is very drastic the way the nld win seats because in some regional parliaments some of the ethnic political parties can't even win any number of significant seats to make any changes and this is also you know it's it's kind of partly due to dnld having pursued a really predatory approach to how they campaigned in ethnic minority areas we have to understand that you know like historically there's strong

alliances between major ethnic parties such as the snld and the nld right and um these alliances were broken just before uh the last election so far they have not been uh taken up again and which means that the nld campaigns and all the districts sends out candidates in areas where where parties contest that look for their own representation and that were partners of the nld before and so that's that's a shift that the party has undergone and this is something you bring up rakhine state that at times this

approaches is deeply troubling um because of course you know everyone would be aware that uh the the the uh the region government is uh appointed uh by the majority winner of the election by the by the union government and so if you take the case of rakhine this is the same in in 2015 where um you had the party uh the amp get a sizable number of votes but can't get it into into uh into government uh then you have a huge amount of voters who feel disenfranchised and um the same thing i think we'll

we will be seeing uh uh now uh again and so i think uh it's it's i don't i i wouldn't go as far as making the sort of general statement saying that the electoral districts that the nld does win in ethnic minority areas constitute any form of broader support okay thank you lee charles mo what's the foreign policy implications from this election well usually foreign policy doesn't feature much in election platforms but i did notice that when the national league for democracy when the nld was putting out the the progress

that had been achieved or accomplished over its term from 2016 to 2020 they also included a report from on external relations so i think going forward looking at the the the strong mandate that the nrd has um you know one of the one of the more pressing concerns that the the government will need to address now will be twofold one is uh addressing that economic and social fallout from covet 19 which of course many governments across the world now have as the top of their governance responsibility

but also uh again dealing with uh the the engaging with uh you know the international community on um the topic that myanmar is currently under scrutiny for uh with relation to uh the treatment of what happened in rakhine over the rohingya communities in 2017 so so all of these of course will now be refracted through the lens of foreign policy and i would see or i would look at maybe going forward foreign policy would take on more of the economic diplomacy uh aspect in in the sense that myanmar of course now

is a signatory to the regional comprehensive economic partnership which is which actually was um mooted by asean in 2012 as a kind of a delicate balance also between the the interests say from china for example and also the global power rivalry so so asean always tries to uh bring together this constructive platform where all the partners can try to engage constructively and the rcep which is led is one of those platforms so myanmar being an asean member has been a negotiating party of the rcep since since it started since the

discussion started in 2012 and uh you know myanmar is also as a member of asean um party to the asean korea free trade agreement for example and several other free trade agreements that asean has negotiated as as an organization as a regional uh body with several dialogue partners so what i'm saying is all of these have uh the multilateral dimension they are based on uh established and agreed uh you know international rules such as the wto so i think myanmar uh of course will be i i think in a position to to leverage

on uh these uh different platforms to to boost up that economic performance legitimacy as well as to to uh address the the social economic fallout from corvit 19. um but of course you see when we talk about the rcep now being adopted that's the step one step two is getting it um ratified and for that all of the governments who have signed this agreement will have to go back to their national legislature and get it ratified and that's where the domestic consultation processes uh will start and should start

in order to explain to the different communities you know the business community the investors but also um all the communities in myanmar the population who will be affected by one way or another from the implementation of these uh agreements that you know what is in it for them and how how this will impact them and so on so uh you know it like i said step two means the national uh implementation part comes in and i think that is where the the link between myanmar's international and regional alignments

and the national priorities uh will need to be uh becoming sync thank you mo okay great discussion let's move to the second round of discussion that's more you know the prospect of a long-term um road to democratizations uh many people especially from the west is saying myanmar has been stalled in the process of democratic transitions and it became is stuck there not moving to the next stage of more consolidations um then for that kind of consolidations happens what kind of civil military relations have to be there and then

how the the people in myanmar uh is ready to go for the further more consolidated the full democracy so let's start uh with the kosai first thanks for the question this is a great question a big question too uh i i i will rather go from the people perspective so we've been conducting a survey since 2015 before the election so trying to test we just borrow some questionnaires from the asia parameters questionnaires from the world value service to trying to test like what is the citizen attitudes toward democracies

human rights and democratic process and good governance or whatever we're just trying to understand the people perception and then how as a civil society can engage to improve the perception of the people commitment to democracy so the data i mean like the the asia barometers asia foundation and and then a lot of surveys show that our peoples are committed to democracy that's for clear so it's being proved that in 1990 elections it's been proved that in 2012 by election in 2015 and now it's already proved that

the are are committed to do the part the only thing is how the people can cr and engage and to promote that that's that's a very difficult part and that's the thing something i think that the annual government needs to commit it to because for from us a civil society member and as a member the prospecting from the civil society us the role of civil society is very crucial to move forward to create a space for the people to participate in this democratic which is crucial and this is very foundation to move forward to be more

democratic so i think that for the last five years when you when we look at the indicator from freedom house indicator from free press that the indicators are declining because because of the the the regulations regarding the free speech free freedom of associations the the rules of society has been i have to shrinking and declining that's the dangerous for father democratic uh uh process we are we we are just just just the the the very first the very beginning of the journey towards democracy the militaries are staying there a lot

of people has been disadvantaged to participate not necessarily i mean like i uh citizenship but also other uh legal framework and other processes we have a lot of migrant workers who are not able to participate even though they are citizens they are the citizens in thailand there are many thousands millions of people has never participated in the election and in malaysia i mean a lot of people so i mean like so so so i think that for me uh if we want to move further uh energy government need to

instead of inviting so need to open up for the citizen or for the civil society to participate in the process and open up for the media to be independent media to to communicate with the democratic person that's i think crucial and fundamental to move forward for me from i mean as a civil society member i would rather press on that approach yeah i think it will be more sensible with this popular mandate nld should feel very confident to open up more but i don't know because they may be still worried about their relations with

the military uh maybe their party can address later uh richard you know the country well and you also know the you know criticism primarily from the from the western society focusing on rohingya issues do you think the western is a little bit biased emphasizing too much about this minority issues rather than looking at the overall achievement of energy for these ongoing democratic transitions i mean first of all i mean i would say that in my perception of this i i don't see so strictly a divide between uh people from

say europe and the us and people in myanmar in general i'd say it's a divide between people whose job it is to do research or to focus on on sort of policy issues and people who do not do that who are ordinary citizens or have some other kind of profession because i would say that you know many many of the researchers are civil society actors and to some extent people working in politics that i do meet in myanmar share a grievance over the way uh the rohingya crisis unfolded um and and you know i think what sometimes does get

lost in the west is um you know there was this there was a series of newspaper sort of headlines and saying well you know now the nld is sort of cozying up to the tatmador and they are now sort of best buddies and sort of have a very cooperative partnership because of you know rakhine because the west sort of people in in europe when they see that that onsen suggest goes to the hague to make the case to defend myanmar they think well you know this must be must be very pleasing to to people in the armed forces

and you know certainly i think it doesn't harm the relationship but it goes missing that within myanmar and certainly for media that is uh military affiliated um the nld and aung swansea g are still being depicted as sort of uh being too close with the the muslim population and it is sometimes a sentiment that the stance of the nld on the rohingya is not strict enough even right and so it's not necessarily the alliances that i think sometimes i perceive um but in the future you know of course you know when we're looking at the

question of um the sort of democratic challenges and democratization yeah it has to be said that the protection of of of the most essential values of democracy right these are the essential sort of human rights like freedom of movement freedom of speech you know um freedom to participate in elections right these need to be protected there needs to be we cannot have uh you cannot have a government uh that doesn't protect these things and expect that at the same time you have uh somehow democratic process right you

might have structural improvements but i think in the long term uh that will be very difficult and i think you know sort of you there was a question coming through a little bit and sort of you know what why is dld doing what it's what it's doing and how it's been acting and i you know from you know i've talked with uh with many many many many uh uh nld politicians uh over the years and there is a perception within the party that the party is aware of acting at times undemocratic of defending right like when i when you

know when the party like decided not to repeal article 60 of the telecommunications law that is a a way of repressing uh criticism uh you know there's an awareness within the nld that this is not completely in line with the democratic policy platform but the justification is to say well while myanmar is not entirely democratic we can't afford to be entirely democratic either um because we can't we we need have actually like sort of more control simply because we have to navigate as an environment where we

uh where it's not complete democracy where the military still plays an important role but i think you know looking forward that's one of the things that will have to to change because i think that that's a really dangerous um approach to to kind of if you delay um your advocacy for for democratic values and to delay uh democratic uh decisions or democratic policies um then what you're inevitably doing to some extent is that you're more strongly consolidating um you know whatever way you do behave and

if that's an autocratic more autocratic way or if it's more fruitarian uh decision you know like the nld's uh took out the section on protecting um media freedom and freedom of speech from its election manifesto now for this for this election i mean these are kind of developments uh that will have to be reversed and we will have to get back to sort of an open advocacy of the ruling party for democrat democracy and democratic values if we're to see more democratization yeah i cannot agree more because south

korea was under the long authoritarian period and this ruling black bloc usually finds a reason to delay democratizations so i think i i always compare myanmar to the 70s and 80s of south korea okay mo what's your opinion you know at one point in time i was also looking at south korea's democratization model to see how that could um have some some resonance in myanmar's own experience um but okay we're talking about myanmar today um i i think uh you know what uh well kozai and richard have highlighted i think

really points to this um to this importance of looking at um democracy and you know the the transition to democracy the democratization and all the elements or the qualities of it right so yes elections are one part you know the right to vote in standing elections yes that's one key element of democracy but so do those freedoms that richard has talked about and um and also the respect for the rule of law so when we come to that respect for the rule of law right this is where i i start thinking we need

a new roadmap of our own creation and why i say this is because you know people who are familiar with myanmar's recent political history will know that the current democratization process that we have is not one that was imagined by the people it was something that was welled into reality by the military government i said this at a panel yesterday as well so we are living with this uh something that was uh willed on us this democratization process that was imagined and conceptualized and somehow

uh you know laid out in a road map a so-called seven-step roadmap by the military and if and you know if you look at it right um we are still in that final step of that roadmap of trying to construct a democratic union right so so i think uh as long as the 2008 constitution uh goes on as it is it is uh it is a constraint and it will continue to be a constraint you know unless we we try to negotiate this amendment and what goes on said about bringing in inputs from a wider range of stakeholders is also very important

because earlier on we were talking about how democracy promotion needs to be further entrenched beyond just you know uh voting for or against based on your own uh you know emotive response to the process but really looking at that kind of you know deeper civic um awareness and and and that kind of um uh higher political awareness which core science surveys have been tracking so i i think uh that that is the next step going forward in terms of you know the discussions of the conversations on what

democracy means for us we really need to do a lot more of that kind of civic uh advocate advocacy and the education you know i used to naively think that as long as there's this kind of established process to discuss all these um amendments and so on you know we could tackle that but you know we've seen that process has run into roadblocks because um either the military does not seem ready to relinquish the role and reach that it currently maintains in the country's political life or you know um how do they view

their own uh role uh they've been preparing for so-called returning to the barracks uh by by preparing that uh economically but the withdrawal from political life i think has its own complexities you know uh the 25 percent in parliament the the appointment of three ministerial portfolios and so on so i i think when we start discussing among all the stakeholders i think you know one of the important stakeholders is also the military you know if they're part of the problem they they have to be part of the solution uh

simplistically but uh those crucial conversations taking place need to take place across that wide range when we talk about you know entrenching those values of democracy and getting that wider understanding towards the the enlightened self-interest and if you look at it um you know the international institute for uh democracy and electoral assistance international idea they have this um global democracy index uh i looked at myanmar's position it's in the mid-range of democratic performance so looking at that

of course we can see where are the areas that uh further need to be um constructively dealt with and again you know uh we're not that bad if we look around in southeast asia our neighboring countries and so on asean you know myanmar's democracy is not that bad in terms of voice and expression and freedom of choice i mean after all look at the votes we've we've showed that you know we want to vote in the government we want to collect the government that we want to chart the future but so now the question now is

how do we chart that future and and how do we then you know use our social collective action uh to to continue with those consultative and communal actions that are also very central uh to democracy so i think you know there's a lot to be done but um again going back to what i talked about responding to the economic and social fallout of covet 19.

if you look at what are the challenges of addressing or responding to covet 19 you will see the same kind of topics come up when we talk about democracy you know there are questions of inclusion there are questions of equality there are questions of consultation they are questions of going with evidence-based decisions so i think these are important ingredients also for democracy and we need to have um that kind of uh more constructive dialogue and crucial conversations to to find that common ground or

mutual interest that you know all of us can agree uh to work on together and and you know call me an idealist call me a constructivist but i do believe in in in the power of of dialogue and discussion okay yeah it's better to be sitting across them uh you know sitting face to face uh with them across the table then having them in the streets with guns thank you kind i guess uh your institute and your uh networks have studied a lot and with the under the local government setting so there seems to be more cooperation

between local government and civil society regionally so uh watch your in the long-term prospect for uh the more to to the past to democracy you you need to mute yeah we actually to consolidate consolidate democracy we need to promote a civic engagement in in every sphere of the society i think that it's very important or participatory democracy we can call it so with the the the energy government they they need to create or and enlarge these spaces but uh what actually we are also seeing seeing these spaces

at the at the local level but not especially in burma majority area so actually the that's why sometimes yeah it's very difficult for us to uh to uh to generalize uh to generalize blanketly and say that our civil space is uh sharing the completely in in our country so there are areas especially especially i think that especially freedom of association freedom of protest something like that especially in in rakhine rakhine state rakhine state uh internet in the internet service was disrupted and then the the student

aragon student they protested and then they were they were they were sent to prison that kind of thing should not have been not should not have occurred but at the same time there are there are areas there are areas where uh civil engagement is enhanced enhanced especially uh especially at the township level now especially in environment majority regions region seven seven regions so they are local people they are actually working closely with the members of parliament members of parliament and township

planning and implementation committee so township blind planning and implementation companies are they they are responsible for coordination and and implementing development development pro projects so the mvs because they they want to get votes not from from from from the from their constituency they have to listen to their listen to their voices so now the local voices are hard and then they get into account in in budget planning budget planning and development development uh process but at the same

time i think that more more deliberation more institutionalized institutionalization of these spaces it's very very important very crucial to democratization because because they usually these are uh these engagements they are not up to now they have not been formalized so it depends on it sometimes it depends on context or something like that there are personal personal contacts so we they're not the energy government they must they should they should formalize these civil engagement civic space and then

so concern more no they should conduct more conservation especially in the ethnic area because the brm project bell and road initiative project the big mega project this projects can have huge impact on on the on the local community even now the the ethnic people they excluded they think that uh their voices are not hard with respect to these manga projects so i think mechanisms and the spaces should be created to listen to their voices otherwise they don't have they don't have outlets to not to bend their

anger or to to defend their grievances i think that that that that kind of mechanism very crucial in in the next down thank you kind i guess uh i i have only about 10 minutes to discuss and i like this question and yey ang has asked even before we are discussing how we move to full-fledged full democracy we have to discuss the current quality of myanmar democracy and he or she is asking myanmar getting closer to liberal democracy or mob democracy more populist democracy i would say if i add you know um

you have a kind of problem in in this uh mabata movement and very aggressive uh the nationalistic buddhism and that kind of things um obviously is not close to the vision of liberal democracy so i wonder uh forget about the minority issues if you just focus on the mainstream uh how you assess the current quality of a democracy uh you know looking at this um very nationalistic buddhism and and that kind of uh the kind of mood uh that is critical to the quality of democracy in your country so let's start from cosine and maybe you

can speak just two minutes each i for me we are far away to live as a democracy we are just staying on the path we are just started exercising election election doesn't mean democracy i mean definitely democracy every democracy have election as a means to elect the government but once we have the election and we can't leave it just simply leave it and then we got democracy i don't think it is a the right way to term our political system yet so we are still very far away and we are just started the beginning as

mammal just mentioned that this is the the the current framework is not from the people it is not we are not we we haven't owned this process yet so we need to own this process and then we can move forward i i i think that is stay far away uh to do to to i mean assess the quality of the of the of the democracy yeah i mean stay tuned thank you lichar yeah thank you very much for the question uh you know i agree with uh with kosai um you know today i would characterize or describe myanmar as a hybrid regime and it has parts of that

uh that are authoritarian has parts that are legitimately democratic and it's the question what you do with this we there used to be this understanding that once you embark on a democratization process somehow it just unfolds and you have a sort of you automatically kind of come to a consolidation stage um we don't think like that anymore today and everyone knows that it's tough and it's not a sort of process where you know in what direction it's going to go um but one thing i would like to highlight is that

you know maybe for the first time in you know in many decades i think what this election has also shown is that the current state of affairs in myanmar is fairly stable whatever powers the civilian power does have they're fairly stable whatever control the military has it's fairly stable and let's not forget that for all the criticism that is there is rightly is right but that the civilian government will again have a majority in both houses any exchange that doesn't require constitutional amendment

can be made and within that there is an a great potential for making democratic progress and for making democratic policy and i think so looking in the future while it's understandable that everyone wants progress on the big things on constitutional amendment on national reconciliation and peace i think um you know i said before the military is not going to give up its power uh you know in the next five years but if the civilian government focuses on all these possibilities that it has just by having the majority and this could be

anything judiciary reform you know rule of law uh you know strengthening democratic principles we talked about that all of these things are technically possible and that's also i think something i'd like to highlight okay well um i think somebody asked new questions about whether the myanmar has the freedom of speech enough so what's your reaction um yeah i think you know it it's true we we are probably hearing more criticisms because there is less uh silencing of voices and i think that's a plus point i mean

you know what we see in democratic systems really is a constant kind of pushing the envelope and then and it's it's it's a continuous kind of effort to not not just like build the democracy but once you believe that you have achieved some level of stability and and the fundamentals of a democratic system you continue building it nurturing it trying to improve it so it's really uh of a continuous nature and and i think um that is what we are seeing now people's voices can't really be silenced i think once

the previous administration before the nld the usdb government suddenly let go of most of those restrictions on the internet on censorship of the present so on once you've kind of like let that out you can't really rate it all back in again so then it would be how how these conversations are continued and i use that term crucial conversation in the sense that these are conversations you need to have at different levels among different communities such that they provide that feedback um to to the executive to the

legislature for for that continuous improvement so i think um i would because i always try to see things from that constructive viewpoint i i see this as as essential and as gosei and richard have also highlighted the freedom of expression uh along with freedom of worship freedom of assembly and all of that they are uh essential characteristics also of democracy that we we also need to continuously you know build and improve i was just uh thinking about that continuous building and improving uh the nature of of democracy you know

on democracy and uh part of that democracy which are the electoral processes that they are not perfect they are they are imperfections in the system and these imperfections for me show where we need to uh focus on for continual improvement to reach that that inclusive status that goes i mentioned much earlier uh in the in the program and also improve the quality of a democracy which you know the country has to own the citizens and the leadership have to own and lead uh own and lead that um and you know i

was just sharing this point also yesterday um burma still as a colony of the british you know as a british colony in 1935 granted the vote to women and it was i think the first country in asia to to give women the vote and if you do that comparative thing women in the united states had gained the vote in 1920 and women in the in in the united kingdom uh burma's colonial master at the time had gained the vote in 1918 but only after how many centuries off asking for that vote and if you look at the united states

african-american men in the united states gained the right to vote in 1870 which was almost nearly a century after the united states became an independent sovereign state and of course the news that we see in here in the present moment of course you know reminds us of the imperfections and systems and practices and the continuous need to improve so i just like to make that point again you know it it is i think that continuous need to improve that myanmar needs to bear in mind when it continues with that transition and that

need to improve requires inputs from all of us who have a stake in our country's political future thank you two minutes to kind yeah i agree with uh mamou it's it's a continuous process uh the myanmar needs to improve democratization in my opinion with respect to democratic governance there have been progress in some some area for example budget transparency in the past we could we we cannot we cannot see the details of the budget now budget transparency it has now been up to international standard

so needs to be improved but now for example budget transparency and policy followed by non-policy areas so government they have to be accountable now they have to be accountable to to the due to the policy con constituents so that that's why i think it's a it's a kind of struggle so that there are areas of which it needs to be improved substantially but also there are there are areas which have now which have already improved a lot something like that so i think that it will be democratization and democratic

promotion of democratic governance it will be a interesting very interesting subject for now for for all of us in in myanmar we have to we have to continue to monitor monitor oh is ruling or other party is ruling ruling the country so we we have to get in touch with these now with these issues and people the public must have access to information that's that's very important access to information that's why that we are also encouraging and pushing the government to be more transparent so let the public get access

to to public information so i think it will it will be very challenging for the government as well as for for civil society and the public in in the in the near and median down and long term thank you very much thank you it was fascinating discussions you know my key takeaways from four distinguished panelists is that number one um all of you seem to agree that the uh despite some problems like counseling voting in la kaine state and also some problem about the electoral commission i think i all seem to agree that the

the this election uh was fair and and and you believe that there is integrity of elect election process uh but number two but nevertheless many uh all of you have pointed out you need to miami still needs a lot to reform to make a system more inclusive to enfranchise the minority groups uh and also changing the election rule more to proportion or maybe rather than simple first festival system uh and number three and and you believe uh the majority of uh the myanmar people are very much committed to democracy

uh so there are much space and energy uh to reform to the future uh to the stable path to further democratization even though the current big picture was imposed from the top so my wish is that all this uh popular mandate of nad from the last election they can you know go for more positively and and confidently uh to go uh you know to the step by step toward the full democracy thank you so much uh participants from myanmar and also hamburg germany and singapore and also south korea it was fascinating

talk and i wish you all the best and thank you for the participants for raising very important questions thank you thank you