 this session says, you know, this election, which we expect will be held in early November in Myanmar, is really potentially a watershed moment in Myanmar's transition from a military authoritarian government to a parliamentary democracy. And this election is not just going to be for the national government, but also for 14 state and regional governments. And I should let you know that this event is co-sponsored by the Asia Society Policy Institute and by the Southeast Asia Department in the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. And I also want to place on the record our appreciation for financial support for this series by the Japan External Trade Organization. So thanks to them. Now, some of you came at the first event that we had in this series of Myanmar Votes 2015, which we had a few weeks ago when we had Thura Shreman here. And if you weren't here, you can always go to our website and take a look at the video, because I think it was a fascinating conversation with somebody who's currently the speaker of the Union Parliament that is not just the lower house, but also the upper house at this point, the joint parliament, as well as a possible presidential contender. And we hope to have a series of events on Myanmar Votes 2015, and this is the second such event. And this event, we hope, will provide you with an overview of what the issues and challenges are. And we expect to follow this up then with events which take a deep dive onto more specific issues. You know, the role of the military, for example, the role of ethnic, the ethnic peace process, and its impact, possible impact on the elections, the economy in the elections, and of course, political parties and personalities and the election. So I hope you'll be able to come to all those events as well, and we expect to have a great series of panels that will discuss those issues. I also want to let you know that we have, at the Carnegie website, a special webpage on Myanmar Votes 2015, where we have background papers and we have other papers which lay out some of the details. And we hope to bring more articles and put them on that webpage, so please keep taking a look as we update that information and bring out new information. So with that introduction, it's my great pleasure to introduce this incredibly distinguished panel, and I'm very grateful to all of them for coming this afternoon. We have Priscila Klap, who's a senior advisor to the US Institute of Peace and the Asia Society. She's a recognized expert in Myanmar, and she served as US Charger d'affaires in Yangon from 1999 to 2002. We have Scott Marciel, who is a principal deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the US Department of State, and he was previously the ambassador to Indonesia. And finally, to my right, Professor David Steinberg, who is a distinguished professor emeritus of Asian studies at Georgetown University, and is a specialist in Myanmar. And in fact, I didn't bring the book with me. He has just brought out a book. What's it called? The Dynamics of Policy. Of evolving policy. I should have brought the book, but I do recommend it to all of you. It's a remarkably well-informed book with incredible detail and a very deep understanding of what's going on in Myanmar by a series of authors. Professor Steinberg edited it and also contributed some articles to it, but I would strongly recommend it to all of you. Now, what I've agreed with the panelists is that they will initially give a five to ten minute introduction to their views about the upcoming elections, and then we'll have a conversation for a while, and then finally I'll open it up to the audience as well for you to ask questions. So let me ask Priscilla Klapp to begin. Priscilla. Now, you told me that you were going to ask me why the elections matter. Yes. My thoughts on why the elections matter. So I have two thoughts on why they matter. The first is, it's a test for the military, essentially. Are they going to allow these elections to be free and fair? It looks at this point like they're doing everything they need to do in the preparatory phase to make the elections as free and fair as they can. There are some problems in there, which we can get to later. Right now they're headed for what look like free and fair elections. The second reason is because the results of this election will probably bring about the first stage of a coalition government. And this is something that we have all been wishing for for more than 20 years since 1990. It cannot be all one way or all the other way at this point. If the military is serious about moving forward with the reform process. If the elections go wrong, then all bets are off, I would say. But there's a relationship between the free and fair, the free and fairness of the elections and the degree of coalition that comes about. And we can get into those details later. But those are the two big issues, I think, in this election. And I think that's what's on the minds of the Burmese. OK, thanks, Priscilla. Scott. Wow, I don't think I can be as concise as Priscilla. But I'll try to be almost half as thoughtful. And thanks. I mean, I think when we look at these elections and we're watching the preparations extremely closely, we of course look at it in the context of the broader picture of what's happening in Myanmar. And you know the story. After 50 years of harshly repressive military government three or four years ago, beginnings of an opening and of a reform process that has been significant. I was just there again about 10 days ago. It's been some time there before the reforms began. And if you've been before and after, you can see yourself. A lot has changed, significant change. But still huge challenges remaining. I think everyone recognizes. And although we haven't used the term that the elections are a test, I mean, I like that concept. Certainly the elections, which we expect to be held perhaps November, but around November, are hugely important for the country. They will be, could be, could be if done properly and fully implemented, you know, will be the first, could be the first real credible democratic elections in the country nationwide in a very, very long time. So what are we looking for? What's our agenda? Again, our whole agenda with Burma or Myanmar is to support this democratic transition in all of its aspects, economic reform, the peace process, improvement in human rights. Certainly a move toward democracy including the elections increased freedoms, et cetera. Progress in a really complicated situation in Rakhine state. So the elections fit in as an important piece of that. And there's certainly the one item on the agenda for the next several months that has the, I say, the greatest potential to mark a major milestone in a positive way. And that's our hope. I won't make any predictions. I'll let Priscilla and maybe the distinguished professor who can make some predictions. But certainly as Priscilla said, there's some, you know, at this point if the elections were to go ahead as things now stand, there's some real flaws. There's the fact that 25% of the seats are held by non-elected military. There's the fact that the white card holds, so-called white card holders at this point have been disenfranchised. The fact that people like Aung San Suu Kyi wouldn't be able to be candidates for president. So that, at this point, you know, we're still pushing for constitutional amendments and further reform to make the elections even better. But I think at this point, as Priscilla said, it looks like all the relevant institutions, the Union Electoral Commission and others, the parties are preparing for what they expect to be real elections and hopefully real credible elections that will involve free and open campaigning. And in the end, you know, for us, what are we looking for? Whether the people of the country feel that the election results reflect the will of the people. So we don't have a predetermined position on which party does what, but do the people of the country feel that these elections represent their will? And if they do, these elections can be a very significant step forward. They won't be a panacea. They won't solve all the other problems, but they could be an important step in injecting more momentum into the broader reform effort, in boosting the trust and confidence of the people. My experience and my trips there, people are, you know, speaking very generally, of course, people are hopeful, but they're still wondering. You know, they went through a lot for a lot of years, and so there's still a lot of caution and worry out there. So a successful election could, I think, give people more confidence in this process and, of course, could and should result in a new government that we hope has a mandate to continue the reform process. So we view these elections as hugely important. And if they're successful, it could really boost the country forward in a significant way. We're supporting the election process with a fair amount of assistance for the Union Electoral Commission in terms of training poll watchers, as well as political parties, not obviously siding with any particular individuals or parties, but trying to support the process. And it's going to be a difficult election for the Electoral Commission to run even with the best of intentions. But it's hugely important, I don't think you can understate the importance of it, and something we're going to watch extremely closely. Thank you. Thanks, Scott. David. I'm afraid my style is not as lapidary as my colleagues here. Let me say, I think we're dealing with six distinct aspects of the election process, but we conflate these into the election itself. Those are the campaign, the elections themselves, the interim period between the elections and the new government, and what happens then. The new government and the internal reactions to it, the international reactions to this whole process, and the future prospects for the government. Elections alone do not a democracy make. We have seen that in many different places. They're critical, but they're not sufficient for democracy. In Thailand, as an expert on Thailand said last week, that when finally there are elections in Thailand, we'll say we'll now get back to democracy, but he argues, no, you won't get back to democracy because the cultural values, hierarchical values of Thailand will not allow that to happen in a way that we will feel is adequate. I think Myanmar is in a better position because it is a more democratic society than Thailand. We've already demonstrated by working with this government that the elections, the fraudulent elections can also work in a way because that's what the 2010 elections were in Myanmar. They were manipulated very, very clearly. Now, I may be a bit cynical because I'm from Boston, and I grew up under Boston's mayor James Michael Curley, who was elected as mayor from jail. I was there, too. So that may color my views. But there are three things that are going to be important in this election that we have to understand as background. Those are the overwhelming influence of nationalism, and nationalism not only among the Berman population but among the minority populations as well. This leads to a very distinct sense of vulnerability. And a suspected subversion of the culture of the society and then bombastic responses often from the government of these perceived dangers. Even though you may regard those dangers as being overstated, but that doesn't nevertheless mean that they're not perceived as such. The second element is that the military has designed a system for their perpetual control. It will eventually fail. This trust the civilian population, politicians, this must be overcome. This is reflected in the Constitution, of course, and the 25% military as, quote, guardians of the state as the Burmese academics will put it. The third issue, which I regard as the central issue facing the state since 1948, is the majority minority issues. Though democracy is secondary in my view. No government has solved the problem and the problem remains. The military made it worse. This government is doing more than any other government, but there still is a difficulty. To give you an example of that difficulty, of the 12% of the legislature that is now retired military, this is not the active duty ones, the retired military, and of the 63 surveyed all Burman Buddhists with one exception. Chin, Christian who was a corporal. Everybody else was an officer except this one guy. It indicates the issue of the minorities and the control of the Burman population. The campaign itself is the election commission up to the job. Probably not. There were over now 80 parties and we know that the reforms that have been instituted in the past have not always been carried out on the periphery of the bureaucracy or the government itself, so I think that there are likely to be issues, but I think the votes will be generally fairly counted. What about the elections themselves? Will they agree to observe as the Carter Center has come on board? The civil society elements are involved in the process. There are likely to be problems there and anomalies will be fairly counted. The interim period, that's another issue. Aung San Suu Kyi will not be allowed to be run for the presidency, but she could be the kingmaker of the vice president and could choose that person if that person came from the NLD. One of the questions that we don't have an answer to is the continuing role of General Fan Shui, former head of state. What is that role? There are disputes. Certainly critical issues that some say over. Certainly the reforms could not have been instituted without his general approval in the broad sense, but we don't know how much influence he will have in choosing the new president and that will be critical. The new government will remain under military control. If you look at the reintroduction of the permanent secretaries that was announced earlier this year, 16 of the 23 are former military people. That indicates then that these civil servants theoretically will have strong military ties and military loyalties. All of the director generals of the departments are former military and half of the deputy director generals are former military. So you see that there is this control, even whatever government is elected, the bureaucracy will still be under strong military issues. What about the international reactions? Well, Prime Minister Cameron of the UK already said if Aung San Suu Kyi can't run for the presidency, the vice presidency, the elections are not free and fair. He's on the record. The U.S. has been, I think, a little more discreet. They want it to be all inclusive. That's a very good phrase, I think. But the implications are that if they're not, there will be some problems. We have before the legislature, the U.S. Congress, a bill introduced last April, House Bill 4733, which basically says if Aung San Suu Kyi can't run from the presidency and the military is not under civilian control, security assistance should cease. That bill will not be passed, but the fact that it's there is important. It's important, therefore, two possible reasons. One is theater, to please elements of the population without any chance of being passed. Or it is so naive that it makes real questions about the Congress's ability to make foreign policy intelligently. So we have a, we will see these issues come up and you can be sure that the human rights group will pick on these issues as real issues. Whatever happens, Japan will go along with the deal unless it is so blatantly false that the international pressures will be too great on Japan. But their commitment is already very heavy. China will probably regard all this as a part of the pivot for the U.S. and therefore suspect that they will go along and of course, Ossian will, of course, go along. The future prospects to end this, there will be an attrition of military control. It's underway, they have controlled all the social mobility in that society. That is ending. And as it ends, there will be new people coming up, especially through the political process, the economic process, the civil society, and that will change the nature of the game. But it will be a slow process. That's the problem. We want instant change. But we need to be patient about that change because it will not come immediately and it will not come by the time of the elections themselves. So as I would like to end by quoting a Eminem Burmese who was here a couple of months ago at a conference. He was asked about his outlook on the situation. He said, I am frustratingly optimistic. Thank you, David. So, Priscilla, I'm going to ask you the first question. David laid out these sort of five stages in the whole electoral process. But I think it might be a good thing for all of us if you could elaborate on the electoral process itself from the parliamentary elections all the way to the final appointment of the president. Sure. Now that I'm no longer with the government I can be brutally analytic. There's really two separate but related stages to the elections. The first one is parliamentary elections. And this is a general election for members of parliament. The 25% military are appointed later by the commander in chief but the other three quarters of the upper and lower house are elected by people according to township. Which raises other questions but we won't get into that. The second stage in the elections comes after the new parliament is seated and let's say the elections are in early November. The parliament will be seated probably in January. Sometime in January. The parliament will then go about electing its own leaders. In probably February or early March probably late February if it goes according to the way it did last time. The parliament will divide into three parts. The elected members of the lower house which number 330 if all the seats are full and these are just civilian members. And the military, the 25% military from the upper and the lower house are one group which numbers 166. Each group nominates a candidate for a vice president. All three of them will win for a vice presidential seat. So it's important who they nominate because they are in line to be president one way or the other for the whole term unless they get fired like one did. Then when these three nominees have been selected and vetted and make sure that they meet all of the criteria required of a presidential candidate the constitution the whole parliament comes together as the union parliament we call it a joint session they call it Piedown's Uhutaw meaning the union parliament and they vote. It's a simple majority vote the one that gets the most votes is president the next one down is first vice president the next one is second vice president it doesn't really matter the president is the one that matters so if you look at the numbers 168 166 330 the one of those that has the best chance to become president is the one that's nominated by the lower house by the elected members of the lower house yeah okay but then what about the state and regional elections David they have 14 state and regional elections going on at the same time right they have six sub-grenades also so are they important should we be paying attention to them I think we should be paying more attention to the future they are theoretically very important they have not done anything yet they have not illustrated any sort of leadership and they may not have the capacity to do so but president Thane saying yesterday I believe it was said something very important publicly it was in the new light of Myanmar that they will change the constitutional appendices to allow the minority groups to have more say over resources in other words they will give them more money which will mean that the local legislatures ought to have a greater role this is one of the really critical things about minority-majority relations this has been an issue in the Philippines it's not just a question of autonomy for the Morro National Liberation Front but it's a question of who gets the resources out of extractive industries in those areas so this is an important change those minority, if I were running an aid program in Myanmar I would be thinking very carefully what could I do to allow these groups to have more capacity to deal with their own problems because if we're talking about pluralism we're talking about democracy and pluralism and with minority relations as being critical then these organizations should be assisted to be helped to resolve some of these issues I mean that's a remarkable statement by President Tain Sen because in a sense it's the first time that President Myanmar has actually broached the idea of a federal-like structure in fact this was an idea that was put forward also to push on the ethnic peace talks and the peace talks are important to his heritage if you will the heritage of his administration and the reputation I think of the military itself can I add something to that this proposal was actually introduced by the military members of parliament into the parliament in March I mean to change the two schedules actually let me come back to a point that you made and I want to ask you this question Priscilla David mentioned the idea of some constitutional amendments so what is there any likelihood of constitutional amendments taking place before the elections or is there a possibility that there might be a referendum on constitutional amendments as a parallel a track to the elections so please explain first of all I don't think there will be significant changes to the constitution but there can be minor changes and I suspect that there will be minor changes because there are some problems in the constitution in consistencies and other things that I think the military will have no problem changing what are we waiting for for the parliament to vote on proposals for amendments and they haven't voted yet now the parliament I've just learned is supposed to go out a session around the 20th of June so sometime between now and the 20th of June I'm waiting to see a vote in parliament but I think that Shwayman and he actually said that when he was here is having trouble bringing it to a vote that's one reason they were one thing that they were trying to discuss and they haven't been able to the military is playing games with this but the second question about the referendum if not every amendment to the constitution requires a vote in a referendum so if there are some insignificant changes to the constitution they won't need a referendum that's simply a parliamentary vote and it happens but if they have significant changes to sections of the constitution as spelled out in section 436 A then they have to go to referendum it's too late to have a separate referendum it's much too expensive they're not going to run two separate elections between now and the 1st of November so if they do want to have one in time for the next government they're going to have to run it at the same time as the elections and they've broached this possibility they're talking about it both Shwayman has mentioned it and others recently have mentioned it if there are significant amendments voted by the parliament if there are significant amendments but do you think there's a high probability that there will be significant amendments voted by parliament? no before the election I don't think there's a high probability because I think the military is not prepared for major changes to the constitution what happens in this country right now is up to the military and it's just going to be that way at least for another term and I think they're not ready yet to let go of the privileges they have in the constitution in fact they're probably nervous that it's come up so fast they didn't want it to come up in the 1st term they wanted it to wait till the 2nd I wonder if there's a question about privileges I think that they are really concerned about what they regard as the security of the state their regard of the security of the state and our regard of what the security of the state is made are two different things as Mary Callahan has pointed out clearly in her article she wrote so they view this there's a fear on the part of the military that the minorities the civilians will screw up and that they as guardians of the state have to be there now that may not be accurate but that is I think a widely held perception but they also fear Shwayman and he's military well that's another point where Fon Shway gets in the act there's one piece of clarification that I am still trying to pursue if you remember I raised it with Shwayman as well and at that time this issue was still in abeyance and that is the elections for the upper house and this is a very crucial point will the elections for the upper house be based on the 1st past the post system or will it be based on a proportional representation system now there's a bill that's been approved by parliament which says it will be done on a proportional representation system by the upper house yes but it's currently pending the constitutional tribunals what is the likelihood that it will be a proportional representation because it has a big impact because if it's PR that it means you will have significant numbers of the USDP that will be elected to parliament even though they may not necessarily be based on the upper house talking about the upper house it doesn't matter that much in the upper house because the constituencies are so big it's the lower house where it really matters and that's been ruled out what is going to happen is it's unconstitutional you're going to see a proliferation of minority parties who already have that and they are going to be very important in sizing up the power structure of the elections there are going to be many more of the minority parties involved so let me then ask a follow on question to you so let's assume that the parliamentary elections go ahead and they go ahead freely and fairly so what do you think will be the outcome are we going to get a situation where the USDP wins a reasonable number of seats or do you expect that the NLD will make more or less a clean sweep as it did in the 2012 by elections or do you think it's going to be a little bit of a mixed bag David I think it would probably be a mixed bag there are plenty of people in the USDP who are known in their local areas who have reputations not all of them bad based upon their professional qualifications also military but not all military people get a reasonable number of seats but I would assume that the NLD will win the majority just the majority but not over 50% of the seats because if it wins over 50% of the seats then it's in a very strong position well maybe over 50% I'm not trying to be actually very specific about this because I wouldn't have any idea at the local level but I do think that there are eminent people who will be in the USDP and the USDP will get some sort of reasonable proportion but the NLD will do very well One of the NGOs in Yangon is Culp Yopin it's Burmese but it's supported by the British Council has done a study of the political parties recently that's quite interesting and they were trying to predict a little bit based on the past what the voter patterns would be past elections 1990 2012 and so forth where the NLD was present the vote went so predominantly to the NLD that they reach a conclusion that in a way voting for the NLD is voting against the military and they think that that's still a very strong sentiment in the voting public and so if you go by past patterns it looks very much like the NLD will take a big win but you have to temper that because of the new system and also because of the status that the minority parties have now you have to assume that in the seven states the minority states, the ethnic states that the ethnic parties will take a lot more seats than they currently have right now most of the ethnic members in the upper house and even the lower house are members of the USDP not necessarily ethnic parties and this time around they're probably going to run as ethnic politicians not as USDP USDP but the USDP is in these areas making coalitions developing coalitions with these little parties and supporting their election races so that they'll be on their side in the end there are no effects to lose a lot of seats in this election some senior people in the government don't even think they're going to get 25% they need 26% along with the military to control things they don't even think they're going to get that so what they're doing to compensate is building coalitions not only with ethnic minority parties but also with some of these other democracy parties like NDF, the National Democracy Front who came out of the NLD but have been completely disowned by the NLD so they sort of have gone over to the dark side if you want to put it that way at any rate this is what I mean about coalitions there is going to be a lot of trading in this next parliament it's not going to be the same creature that it is today one way or the other and the NLD is going to be I would predict one prediction I will make will be if the elections are free and fair if people can vote the way they want to and their votes get counted the NLD will be the largest party in the parliament among the elected members whether it will have an absolute majority or not is another question and that may not be but the NLD can also make coalitions because many of the little ethnic parties came out of the NLD Sean NLD for example which isn't so little and they will be coalitions with the NLD so it's going to be a very complex situation and it's not going to be as controlled by the military as it is now so this remains the big question over the elections will the military allow these elections to be free and fair so that you are then in a new situation politically Scott I'm not trying to ignore you I thought I would... but I didn't want to put you on the spot and ask you to make these sorts of predictions but I will push you a little bit on a statement you made in your introductory remarks where you talked about the US position vis-à-vis free and fair elections all elections around the world especially developing countries have some degrees of problems and so forth that the United States will be satisfied if the people believe that the outcome of the vote reflects their wishes but how do you know that? how are you going to make that determination? these are always shades of gray it's a good point by the way I had a lot of great predictions but I forgot the prediction sheet actually sorry next time this is really this is actually really hard stuff I mean you've just heard from the experts how complex the political scene is I was in Sean's state a few months ago meeting with political parties and just in one state but still just in one state the politics are immensely complex and then you multiply that throughout the country so I think what we're saying we're always pushing for the best possible elections anywhere the most inclusive the freest campaign the free press in this case constitutional amendments to make constitution more democratic so we will continue to push that but in the end when the elections happen it will be somewhat subjective there's not going to be a perfect scientific test I mean if they're really bad I think we'll know that I think the media will be out I think we'll have a pretty good sense if there's major fraud or these sorts of things but if the NLD and the other political parties campaign run through the elections I mean political parties generally don't say yeah we lost, that's a hard one but I think if the combination of what the observers say what the press says the reaction of the parties themselves and the people who were able to talk to and others were able to talk to we'll have to make a somewhat subjective assessment of where these elections how good were these elections and it's not going to be almost certainly not going to be the perfect election I think that's a given but in the end the key players and the general sense of society was these elections were credible free and fair within the constraints that we know exist transparent people able to vote, votes are counted fairly, etc then I think we would say this is a good thing are you worried Scott that there may be an outcome where the international community may be split in its judgment you may have as David suggested Japan might think that the elections were adequate enough for them to continue with relations and so forth whereas other groups may not to what extent in such situations does the United States in fact confer with other members the international community before arriving at a judgment well I mean again I think certainly we'll be talking to others but I think in the end it's going to matter mostly we're going to be guided mostly by what the people of the country say and how they respond and I said it will be presumably somewhere on a scale between hopefully not in the really bad side almost certainly not in the perfect side it will be somewhere in between and I think we'll be guided how does the NLD react how do other political parties react how do the people react are there big demonstrations all these sorts of things we'll sort of have to look at and make a judgment and presumably there will be several representatives from the United States who will be acting as official observers of the elections so I think their judgment will also play a big role certainly and again what really matters is what the people in the country if people say okay we ran in the elections maybe they weren't perfect but we're planning to take our seats in Parliament we're moving ahead then that will be very significant for us it's you know I mean we aren't going to be you know if the participants in the election determine that they were willing to move on with the results I think then you know that's going to be really significant for us I know you choose your words carefully because participants in the election is that code for Ong San Suu Kyi will her judgment mean a big deal or a great deal among others certainly her judgment will matter it's not just her judgment but certainly her judgment will matter I think you also have to look at what the military could do to manipulate the elections and this is aside from everything else that's being done and one point is the military vote the military members of the military will be voting in the election they will be voting largely on military basis and the monitors and the observers don't get on to the military basis unless there's some extraordinary decision taken between now and then this issue has already been raised in fact it was raised with Shwayman when he was here it's a great point because in the 2010 elections that's exactly what happened there was apparently a lot of well there were a lot of early votes but they've addressed the question of early voting and they have come up with a system that should prevent the misuse of early voting that occurred in 2010 should I say but they haven't addressed the military piece now the military numbers maybe 200,000 people not all of them are eligible to vote well probably all are eligible to vote one way or the other probably not all of them will vote and that's not going to be the overwhelming vote but it could make a big difference in certain constituencies so that's one thing the other thing is this the union election commission relies upon local administration around the country for its staffing for how it's going to be running the polls at the local area local regions local constituencies and the local administration all over the country is something called the general administration department of the Ministry of Home Affairs their military ex-military it's all controlled by the military system and I mean the uniform military system so there's a question about the integrity of GAD and that's that's one of the weak points now everybody who's working on the elections and I'm talking about NDI and IRI and IFES and the Carter Center all of these people are out there working hard on all these details they know about this they've been talking openly about it the UEC is aware of it they're trying to address the question but this country has a very weak administrative system and very weak local governance and no experience with these complex elections so there's a lot of room for things to go wrong in different areas and those are the two big areas that I think we need to look at if the military tries to somehow impede the elections it'll be in those two areas so thanks for watching I want to move on because we've got a lot of other issues to cover let's now assume that the parliamentary elections have taken place David and we're going through this process of the three groups that Priscilla noted to elect the president the three parliamentary groups who are the principal candidates for the presidency currently I presume others may crop up in your course but currently who do you think will be the key candidate standing well there have been four mentioned essentially Shwayman obviously Min-Aung Hlaing head of the military Thane Sain we'll come back to that in a second right and Kim Hang-Min those have been mentioned in the media a lot the question of Thane Sain is a year ago high level people in the APA door said to me Thane Sain will resign along with his critical ministers whether that was true then I don't know whether it's still true I don't know whether it will be true I don't know but certainly there will be pressures from his associates to keep him in office because that's always the way bureaucracies work the jobs depend upon to get the top guy so I don't know what will happen but those four names keep coming up and there may be others but those are certainly the ones in the media and which of them do you think has got the greatest chances to succeed ultimately that's where the question of the role of Thane Sain comes in hmm now when Nae Win was out of office after 88 for at least four years he had influence in society even though he was retired from all positions he was the person who finally determined that he could get rid of General Sao Mung as head of state he was an inquiry given directly to him to approve that process if that is a kind of pattern then I would assume that Thane Sway has some very important role into this who he likes among these people the question of Sway Man or this is a critical issue and I don't know the role of Thane Sway you hear all kinds of rumors he's already stated his likes and dislikes we know his likes and dislikes because he's already said what they are there are two viable candidates right now for President Thane Sain and Sway Man men online the latest rumor is that he's going to take off his uniform and run for a parliamentary seat so that he's there in the wings President Thane Sain does not have to step down does not have to declare his intentions at all at all because he can be picked at the last minute by the military group as their nominee so he can just stay in place between now and the end of well until the time they start nominating candidates for President he does not have to run for the parliament again and this is a dilemma this was a dilemma very much on the mind I think of another presidential candidate who has already stated in public that he wants to change the provision of the constitution that allows a president to be chosen who is not a member of the parliament he wants to make it obligatory that presidential candidates or vice presidential candidates have to be elected first to the parliament so they have some endorsement from the people but this is in fact 60 C in the constitution we focus on 59F which prevents Aung San Suu Kyi but 59C says that the candidates must be an elected person but then in the next section of the parliament 60C it says the presidential candidates can be chosen from among eminent people they don't have to be elected so President Thane Sain has the option of holding back until the last minute and seeing what happens in the early elections before he decides whether he wants to try for a second term but my guess is that he is Thane Sway's preference and he and men online not Sway Man okay I want to move on to another big issue which also is going to affect the election and that is this whole peace process that's taking place when were you in Myanmar very recently about 10 days ago was Deputy Secretary Blinken so at the end of March there was a peace agreement that had been agreed and had to be signed but so far the ethnic armed groups have not signed it and even in fact today and tomorrow and day after they are going through a meeting to decide whether they want to go ahead and sign it they want further changes to it so when you were in Myanmar what did you pick up about the factors behind the seeming change of heart or change of position of the group that actually negotiated the earlier agreement which is now in question yeah I would guess that David and Priscilla will be more expert on this than I am but I'm not sure it's a change of heart but even back in March-April there were still outstanding issues at play and we did meetings not only with government but with non-government and representatives of the ethnic groups certainly one of the big issues is the extent to which the extent of inclusivity whether all the groups the armed groups should be able to sign on to it what I'm saying is the government position is no and at least a number of the ethnic armed groups say that all the armed groups there's a few that don't have ceasefires that weren't part of the initial signing so that's one big question but I think there's still a number of other outstanding issues to be resolved that was the one that people highlighted to us so I'm not sure how much of a change of heart and how much it just wasn't fully baked as of March or April David? No, I think that the government is under pressure they want to have something happen this is a question partly of the legitimacy of the government and it's important for them even if they're saying we're not to run again this is I say the critical issue facing the state since 1948 and getting some motive of ending that people can't agree to is fair in some Burmese fashion is the problem and I don't know what the answer to that is going to be but clearly even if you have a ceasefire that is not the peace process peace process follows thereafter when you start negotiating the details and the distribution of actual power, the distribution of resources that is a long process and it's going to take I think some years to develop but the first issue is getting the ceasefire in place one last question I'm going to ask Scott and then I'm going to open it up to the audience so Scott, the question to you is this I mean in the last few weeks there's been this whole issue of the Rohingya boat people and the terrible conditions they face in Myanmar and to what extent is that influencing or affecting the thinking of the United States in the way it looks at Myanmar and at these elections and are are the Congress and the administration on the same page on this issue or are there differences of opinion and while you're answering that question is it also likely or could affect the question of U.S. sanctions towards Burma is this something that's being thought about in the administration yeah so on the Rohingya the situation of the migrants first of all this is something we've been very focused on something that Deputy Secretary Blinken talked a lot about not only in Burma but in Indonesia as well and that other parts of the administration have been very engaged on so there's the immediate issue of the people who went out and ventured out on boats and our best understanding is a certain percentage of those are people who came from Bangladesh a certain percentage of Rohingya you know we don't have and I don't think UN yet has an exact breakdown and so the first priority of course has been trying to save people who are in a very perilous situation and that's involved working with a number of governments in the region to try to convince people to take in boatloads of people who are in very difficult situation and fortunately a number of governments have stepped up so that's item one there's been lots of talk in this context of addressing the root causes including the situation in Rakhine State but I would step back for us this has been one of the priority issues there's a number of issues that President Obama Secretary Kerry, others officials who've been visiting Burma, Myanmar over the last few years have raised consistently elections that's general human rights situation etc and situation in Rakhine State the situation facing the Rohingya has been one of those issues it highlighted again by the recent events but it was very much on our agenda before and it's you know as you all know an incredibly complex issue that involves not only government policies but also deep seated prejudices within the country and if you go there you don't have to talk to very many people to see this so what we've advocated and continue to advocate for again for the people who've left by boat you know humanitarian treatment you know safe place to stay at least temporarily until their long term situation is resolved but then for the people in Rakhine State A access to humanitarian assistance food education, medical care these sorts of things just basic humanitarian situation the importance of freedom of mobility to be able to move around then access to livelihoods and a path to citizenship so that people who are at this point considered stateless there's some mechanism in place for them to at least have the chance to attain citizenship and with that the rights that come with citizenship in addition of course there's the much in some ways even harder process and challenge for the country of trying to deal with the prejudices and the fears that are behind this so it's a hugely important issue a hugely difficult issue in terms of the administration and congress on this issue and more broadly on our policy I would say there's in general agreement widely held agreement between the administration and most people on Capitol Hill with a general thrust of course of supporting this opening this democratic transition as much as possible and as part of that trying to do as much as we can to secure a better situation for all the people of the country of course there are different views certainly within Congress as you would expect on tactics and pressure points and how bad are things on a particular issue or not we have a regular dialogue a constant dialogue with a lot of members and staff who care I would say I spend more time up on the Hill on Burma than on any other issue by far we don't always agree but I think there's a pretty good dialogue and we certainly listen very carefully to what Hill have to say in terms of sanctions we have the still in existence the SDN list where people can be added to or taken off we have begun to use that in terms of adding and taking people off on a small scale so that still exists but at this point that's kind of where we are Thanks I completely agree with you it is striking when you go to Myanmar how widespread this prejudice is against the Rohingya and it cuts across all political stripes it cuts across economic strata it's quite striking alright so let's open it up to the audience I want to let you know that this session is actually being streamed live so wait till you get the mic please give us your name and your institution affiliation and if you could keep your questions brief that way we can get more questions into the session so let's have this lady right up front here thank you very much Erin Murphy and my advisory group one question on the NLD whether this is a point to gain leverage or if it's just talk but there is hints of a boycott how likely do you think that is and what would be the factors to influence that decision and also a follow up question to that maybe a potential split in the NLD akin to the NDF split but more the majority of the party looking to contest and some deciding that maybe this isn't for them David? If I may say something that is completely in left field I think that if the NLD decided that Aung San Suu Kyi actually decided that she wanted to boycott the United States would put very great pressure on her not to boycott with that I leave to my colleague but what about this point Professor said that not me what about the I don't think the NLD is planning to boycott the elections I think that Aung San Suu Kyi said that because she was trying to pressure the president to hold the six party talks that's when she originally said it I think it was said for public effect however if there were clear signs before the elections that somehow the conservative side of the government and the military were moving in on the elections to change the rules of the elections to make it difficult for the NLD she might they might decide that they weren't going to participate in such a blatantly manipulated process that's why they kept out of it in 1990 if the same circumstances began to arise again then I could see them saying wait a minute this isn't fair because they don't want to run and not be properly represented with the voters but as long as the elections appear to be running free and fair it would be absurd for them to boycott because the only way to change the constitution is to be in the parliament you have to be in the parliament to change the constitution you cannot do it from outside so just boycotting on a whim doesn't make sense great somebody from this side you had a hand up right at the back there yes please Stephanie Scruggs from DuPauway Development I wonder if you could comment on how the election might change property rights we've heard from many of the ethnic minorities particularly the current that they might be able to attract more to the peace process if they were in charge of the property in which they set and actually had the rights to utilize that property and resources for their the local interest so this is all closely tied up with the ethnic sort of the discussions with the ethnic groups and the political dialogue that is to follow the ceasefire one of the critical issues facing the state as a whole but especially important in minority areas is the land grabbing issue the land issue is one of the critical socioeconomic problems facing the state and that has to be addressed it's in the legislature now there's been discussions about what to do the military is supposed to have given back some land but very little compared to what they've taken and that is to be it that is really something that one has to concentrate on originally of course under the constitution in 1947 the government owns all the land that is was done to make sure that the Indians and the Chinese did not control the economy and they wanted to get the economy back under Burmese control that is understandable but at this stage all of this time because the government owns the land it was not available for use as a as a credit mechanism so you could not borrow on the value of your land since you didn't own the land now that has changed there is legislation to have that to stop but still the issue remains and I don't see an answer right now but certainly it will be addressed and I think we should be trying to deal in some manner through expert advice in a quiet way to see what we can do to help this process because it is really critical do you want to add anything Prasanna? well if the question is whether the elections will affect this the answer is no but may I add the point which I think is relevant to your question and that is that property rights as far as resources are concerned natural resources which I think in part your question pointed to will depend upon the agreement if any between the government and the ethnic states on fiscal arrangements which are associated with the federal structure so the sort of the sharing of revenues that arise from natural resource exploitation between the states and the center is a crucial dimension of a federal structure and we are far away from that point at this stage so I don't think anybody can prognosticate on that issue so being a bipartisan think tank I'm going to go once again from the left to the right and yes, up here thank you, I'm Steve Hirsch I'm a journalist two questions to Scott Marciel you said at the outset that the United States was pushing for amendments to the constitution I'm wondering what you're pushing for and how it's going I mean, especially given Priscilla's comment that as many people say nothing major is likely to change the other thing is that Aung San Suu Kyi said in that same Reuters interview that somebody referred to a moment ago raised the possibility that the elections might be canceled or not held what do you think the odds of that happening and what would the impact be on U.S. policy thanks Steve we're not being extremely prescriptive we're very aware that this is a sovereign nation and they need to decide the details of their constitution what we're saying is if you want to make this transition to democracy and certainly we want to support you that it's important to make sure that your constitution is a constitution that's appropriate for a democracy and there are any number of elements of the constitution that many people in the country as well as outside have noted don't really fit in a democratic system and the president when he was there when Aung San Suu Kyi was asked about the specific prohibition on Aung San Suu Kyi and others running for president and again, he was I don't remember his exact words but he was careful not to be too specific he just said it's a really unusual situation in a democracy to have a provision that wouldn't let a very popular politician run no, I think I'll stick with what the president said so again, we're not going insane, here's our proposed amendment we're not doing that at all what we're saying is there's a push for a more democratic system and we would encourage you to move people lay different odds on the possibility of whether amendments happen before the election we would love to see amendments that make the constitution more democratic sooner but if they don't happen before the election there's certainly opportunities as Priscilla and David said after the election as for the prospect of the elections not being held again, I can't really make a prediction what I would say is that I've been twice in the last few months talked to a lot of different people at this point it seems that all the players the government UEC, the political parties are all acting as if they expect the elections to happen and my sense is that there's some hopefulness that they will happen and that they will be a serious effort to have quality elections that can change but all I can say is at this point it seems that there is a serious effort underway to have these elections shall I add to that if the elections are to be held the first week of November or early November as the UEC has said they're going to have to make an announcement soon because there has to be a campaign period and senior officials have suggested to me that the announcement will come at the end of July early August so we're getting very close to the cutoff point and once they get to that point the campaigning starts in earnest it would be difficult to turn that train around all right, let's have yes, Professor Jackson Hi, Carl Jackson from SICE I'm interested in the views of the panel on the so-called interim period which I think will be more important than the election itself that is there will have to be a deal at the top of the elite which includes all of the major competitors and what happens if Ansan Suchi is dissatisfied with that deal and then cries foul David? You're the go-to person on tough questions No, that could well happen but the question is what kind of credibility would she have under those circumstances and it would be less than she had before I think her stature has diminished somewhat by certainly in the international circle because of the Rohingya lack of support but internally because actually the government support has gone up in other words a lot of people don't like the military they certainly like the military better now than they liked it four years ago so I think it will be important it certainly would affect international opinion because there is a very strong body of international support for her under any circumstances and as one former congressional staffer said when she was under house arrest I know more about what Ansan Suchi thinks than Ansan Suchi that's a quote Can I add to that Carl, I won't try to predict what happens in December, January but I would say I think Priscilla mentioned or David mentioned the so-called six-party talks that have at least happened once and some expectations will continue I think that's one of the reasons why these talks are so important because this is this is all new territory right and so I think there's a lot of questions about how this works even in the country and how this will work and that's why we're big supporters of this kind of dialogue so that the key players ahead of time and up from now up through the election and even after the election can talk about constitutional amendments and all these sorts of things I don't know whether there's a specific deal or whatever that needs to be struck but I think dialogue and trying to talk through how do we deal with these sorts of issues could be very helpful I think there's a culinary to that to the point that you raise what if there's a deal that the military finds unacceptable there's the other side of the coin as well alright, any further questions yes please, right at the back hi my name is Nian, I'm just a student from Bama studying in the US so my question is that from my understanding there are about 700,000 Rohingyas in Bama and there are about 500,000 in Bangladesh so let's assume for a moment that there has been some changes in the government and we as Bami's government decided to give those 700,000 people from the side of Bama for human rights and freedom to mobility and the path to citizenship everything that you know we hope that they should have if that happened and the state have 500,000 in Bangladesh side so my question is if that happened with the US government with state pressure to accept that out of 500,000 from the Bangladesh side or with the pressure of Bangladesh government I think that's addressed to you Scott there's a precedent for this in case Scott does it Priscilla is going to save me here with her strong background on refugee and migration affairs it's kind of hard to address something like this that's so hypothetical at this point in terms of our relationship in our dialogue with the government in Napetow we're focused on the livelihood and the treatment of the people inside the country we're not pushing for people to move one way or the other across the border at all but rather the people inside the country and we don't have perfect information at all on this population to know we widely believe that many of them have been there for quite some time possibly generations others may have arrived more recently but we just don't have great information on that so what the focus right now is that the conditions right now inside Rakhine state for this community obviously Rakhine state as a whole is extremely poor I believe it's the second poorest state in the country that works throughout the state but focus on the conditions facing right now this particular community particularly the restrictions the additional restrictions and lack of freedoms and lack of citizenship so that's really our focus great yes please, up here Hi, Jenna Morgenstern-Gaines from the Albright Stonebridge group I have a question regarding the Rakhine crisis and the reaction of the international community we've seen that Pakistan and Gambia have stood up for the Rohingya in solidarity all being of Muslim background I'm wondering if you have any insight into whether there will be a greater statement or reaction from the OIC or any other organizations that are organizing different Muslim groups across the world thank you I don't think I have a great answer the OIC has been involved to some extent in this process and has spoken and has visited the country so it's an issue certainly for some members but I can't say to be honest going forward whether they'll decide to become more active on it what I can say is that within ASEAN individual countries have made sort of informal representation in some cases even formal representations to Myanmar to see if they can sort of resolve this issue I'm thinking especially now of Indonesia and of course Malaysia they've been affected as has Thailand but I think Malaysia and Indonesia have better credentials as sort of Islamic countries to press this case with Myanmar but as we also know this is not an issue which ASEAN can discuss as a group because there's a lot of non-intervention in each country's affairs so non-interference in each country's affairs which prevents that discussion from happening which is unfortunate yes there was a hand yes Professor Weiss Bill Weiss, Johns Hopkins Seiss on the subject of intervention other than on the Rohingya issue what evidence have you seen of Indian and Chinese interest in the forthcoming election what sort of interventions have they made either overtly or otherwise and lastly what might you expect as the campaign actually begins to take shape you want to say anything about the Indian-Chinese yeah the truth is I haven't seen much that doesn't mean that they're not doing things or active in some way but it's not something that's come across my desk I'm sure the Chinese are watching it with great interest but they haven't asked to send observers yet and what about Chinese are of course well experienced with democratic elections and India I'm sure is also watching with great interest they are a democracy and will probably you know they may even have people among observer groups particularly UN, Numbia after all what happens when the elections start running I think we're going to see a lot of candidates scurrying around in their constituencies competing with each other I think there are more than 80 parties lining up to run in the elections most of them are small local parties some of them are not going to win anything but it's just going to be a tremendous amount of activity I think there will be a big question about whether and this question has already been raised about whether candidates can campaign outside of their own constituency use the mic could you please use the mic say that again one second my question was not what happens within the country amongst Burmese themselves but rather what might you expect and China to do to influence the outcome once the campaign actually begins I don't think they'll do anything except continue fighting on the border I agree I don't think they'll do anything but there is one subtext there on the Indian side there's a small Naga group that's refused to sign these fires because they want to look at a greater Naga land and I remember that out of these 14 legislatures regional and state legislatures under those there are 6 sub-legislatures for townships in the case of WadaVision one of those is the Naga group which relate to the Naga in Naga land in India and so this group said in one of their press reports that we are looking for a greater Naga land which must cure the hell out of everybody there's a further subtext to this because the Naga leader in India who was a leader in reaching an agreement with the Indian authorities for peace in India was in fact deputed to be an advisor to the peace talks to give the Indian examples to how they reached an agreement so there are wheels within wheels and circles within circles on this one yes there was a hand up here lady right here two questions yes please I'm Jennifer Chang I'm a research assistant at the Embassy of India I was wondering if this transition to democracy might actually exacerbate the status of the Rohingya migrants in the sense that political parties might use this anti-Rohingya sentiment to maybe kind of forge ties with others and whether these Buddhist monks might actually feel that they have lesser restrictions on their speech kind of anti-hate speech against the Rohingya that's a great question and may I add to that question also will the next government be as interested and aggressive in pursuing the peace talks so there's a combination of the attitude towards rangers as well as the attitude towards the peace talks themselves it's hard to say if you don't know what the next government's going to be I think that the issue of the Rohingya or it's really the Muslim Buddhist divide in the country if that becomes an issue in the elections it will be the monks and the Rakhine that raise it it'll be certainly an issue in Rakhine state but those elections are controlled completely by Rakhine parties so we can assume that it's an issue that the Rakhine will control in their own state but to the extent that it becomes an issue in other constituencies I think the government is very concerned about election security and they're watching for any signs of activity that could promote violence during the elections and this is one of them so I think they'll be very alert to community activity that points in the direction of further Muslim Burmese violence so I don't see any coming in the Rakhine state because it's basically it's not an election issue there it's an election issue in other parts of the country if there's one thing that could stop the whole reform process to affect the elections, affect the future government it is an outbreak of violence in Burma proper against the Muslim community that would get out of hand and the government would have to declare martial law the military would take over everything would stop for a period we don't know how long and that is a real danger so I'm sure the government is very aware of this problem and would do everything it could to avoid it but it is something that we have to keep in the back of mind because this is such a volatile issue in the society alright last question on this side I saw a hand raised earlier okay there are no hands okay fantastic oh yes I'll add a question hi I'm Hunter Marston independent Southeast Asia analyst the current system with one house selecting representatives by first past the post and another by proportional representation is a complex one it's not decided yet so my question that follows is when might the constitutional tribunal rule on this and what implications does it have for the forthcoming elections they have ruled on the lower house and said that it's unconstitutional but it's the upper house that's still up for grabs still being decided in the upper house I don't know what the constitutional tribunal when Shreman was here his answer to that question was it will be done by the end of May but that hasn't happened obviously and you're going to have to wait and see or if it has we don't know about it alright so I think that's brought us to the end of this event I want to thank all of you very much for being such an engaged audience for asking terrific question but please join me in thanking the three panelists for a terrific set of comments