Tag: Elections
Myanmar’s still long road ahead
On Wednesday, the Carnegie Endowment hosted a panel discussion on Myanmar’s November 8 elections: ‘What happened and what happens now?’ featuring William Sweeney, president and CEO of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES); U Aung Din, senior adviser at the Open Myanmar Institute; and Christina Fink, professor of practice in International Affairs at George Washington University, The panel was moderated by Carnegie Senior Associate Vikram Nehru.
Sweeney painted an optimistic picture of the elections, in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a staggering 80% of the three quarters of parliamentary seats up for contention in both lower and upper houses (the final quarter being reserved for the military). IFES had worked with Myanmar’s Union Election Commission for three years on several aspects of national elections: stakeholder engagement, updating the national voter list, voter education, women’s leadership, and inclusion of people with disabilities.
The breadth and inclusivity of the 33.5 million-person voter list was particularly impressive, with its complete digitization and incorporation of 6.5 million corrections, checked and checked again on a local level. Sweeney pointed out that an inaccurate or incomplete voter list is often the thing that prevents citizens from voting once they reach the polls.
Despite this promising achievement, there is still a long road ahead to reach stable democratic governance. There will be a four-month transition process. As Din pointed out, there are no clear candidates for president, nominated by parliament. The candidate has to be palatable to both parties and cannot have a military background. The constitution bars Suu Kyi from becoming president because her sons are British citizens, but she plans to play the leading role: ‘the president will have no authority,’ she has said.
This transition takes place in the context of long-running civil wars and ongoing peace processes. Fink stated that there is a complex field of contention, with multiple ethnic-minority armed groups arrayed against the military and a long history of distrust. The military and President Thein Sein aren’t united on strategy, with the army continuing to advance into ethnic minority territory.
While a ceasefire was finally signed in October, and passed on Tuesday, only eight of the fifteen armed rebel groups have signed the agreement, which Fink believes plays into the military’s favored strategy of divide and rule. Further, Suu Kyi and the NLD have not as yet weighed in on the issue of the conflict with ethnic rebels or the peace process, though Suu Kyi has has at least stated that her cabinet will have minority representation.
Though there were ethnic minority candidates running with the NLD, no ethnic-minority political party made significant gains in the elections, which also centers the focus on how Suu Kyi will deal with the issue of minority political representation. There were no Muslim candidates at all with the NLD – as Din pointed out, the NLD intentionally excluded them. In Sweeney’s view, lack of Muslim representation is something society at large, as well as all the political parties, will have to confront.
Myanmar is now in a transition period, economically as well as politically, which increases feelings of insecurity and sentiments of exclusionary nationalism amongst its populace, in Fink’s view. Sweeney highlighted interesting parallels with the debate about immigration and citizenship in Europe and the US, as much of Myanmar’s Muslim population immigrated to the country decades ago, and yet have not acquired citizenship.
With the accomplishment of successful elections behind them, Myanmar needs to continue to negotiate issues of citizenship and reconciliation in the hopes of building a more inclusive society.
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New Turkish elections
On Wednesday, the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research in DC (SETA) hosted a conversation, ‘Turkey Ahead of the November Elections’, featuring Kılıç Kanat, research director at SETA; Ömer Taşpınar, non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Andrew Bowen, senior fellow and director of Middle East Studies at the Center for the National Interest. The executive director of SETA, Kadir Üstün, moderated the discussion. Kanat has just published an analysis paper on the new elections, which have been called for November 1 because of the failure to form a ruling coalition after the June polling.
The June elections were the first in 13 years when no single party won enough votes to create a ruling majority government. Kanat laid out the reasons this occurred and the issues for the upcoming elections. In his view, the causes behind the decline of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) include:
- The ‘Kobani effect’: the battle for the northern Syrian town had a galvanizing effect on Kurds and non-Kurds who voted against Erdoğan, who was seen as wanting ISIS to win;
- Mobilization by smaller parties to pass the 10% threshold for inclusion in parliament;
- For the first time, diaspora Turkish nationalists were allowed to vote in general elections;
- Tactical voting: voters were certain the AKP would win the most votes, but attempted to decrease the margin in order to force a coalition.
Kanat evaluates the shift as a turn to the nationalist parties, whether Turkish or Kurdish: the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the conservative Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and the Republican People’s Party (CHP). The HDP saw the biggest gains in support, from those dissatisfied with Erdoğan’s position vis-à-vis Kobani, and the Kurdish resolution process in general, as well as from diaspora voters.
The middle class has also been increasingly worried in a time of slowing economic growth, losing some confidence in the AKP. The AKP since the Gezi Park demonstrations has had to work hard to keep its support base, but the constant effort at mobiliztion may have resulted in election fatigue among some voters.
Going forward, Kanat stated, the upcoming elections will be determined by voters’ perception of who holds the responsibility for three things: resolving the Kurdish question, as well as dealing with PKK terrorism; maintaining public stability on a nation-wide level; and economic growth or decline.
Taşpınar zoomed out, examining two long-term trends that have contributed to the current political situation. First is the personalization of political power: political analysis and action stems from an understanding of Erdoğan’s plans. There are fewer enduring institutions in this post-Kemalist era, and no unified ideology undergirding the state.
Second, there is increasing polarization in Turkish politics. This has been driven by personalization, as well as the Kurdish question and the identity of Turkey as a country – will it be democratic or autocratic? The Gezi protest was a very real demonstration of this polarization, as was the failure after last weekend’s terrorist attack in Ankara for political leaders to produce a unified vocabulary to bring the nation together.
The theme of personalization ran through Bowen’s comments as well, in particular because of the personalistic nature of foreign policy decisions, for Obama as well as for Erdoğan. Theirs is a bad marriage. One of the key sticking points is the difference in the way they prioritize threats: for Erdoğan, the PKK takes pride of place, with ISIS far behind. Obama, on the other hand, urgently prioritizes defeating ISIS.
The Syrian crisis has drawn out many of the tensions in this relationship, which will be difficult to repair, even after the July agreement on air bases in Turkey. The US is perceived in Turkey as not standing by its allies, but new political leadership in both countries could change the situation, especially if the US focuses again on the Middle East.
According to polls, 15% of Turkish voters are still undecided about the November 1 elections. Only a few percentage points are required to re-cement the AKP’s position of power. The Ankara terror attack, depending on who is understood to be the perpetrator and how the government deals with the aftermath, could be decisive.
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