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From ballots to battlefields, this episode explores whether Myanmar’s election marks a turning point — or merely deepens an already devastating crisis. Nailah Huda speaks with Dr Andrea Passeri from Taylor’s University to unpack what the post-election reality means for civilians, humanitarian access, and prospects for peace.
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00:00This is Awani Global with me, Ayla Huda.
00:09And in this episode, we want to take a close look at developments following the recent election in Myanmar
00:14as the country marks five years since the launch of the military coup.
00:20Now, while the Trump administration has maintained its stance that the US State Department shall not comment on foreign elections,
00:27ASEAN, meanwhile, has stated that it does not accept, it does not recognize the results of the election,
00:35which could potentially secure legitimacy for the military general, Min Ang Liang.
00:40Now, to unpack some of the implications following this recent election
00:43and some of the responses we've seen from around the world joining us in the studio,
00:48today we have Andrea Passeri, Program Director, Bachelor of Social Science in International Relations at Taylor's University
00:56and who's also recently launched the book Myanmar's Post-Coup Foreign Policy,
01:01Weathering Isolation and Sanctions by Routledge that is already out for pre-order.
01:07Hi, Andrea. Thank you so much for joining us today. How are you?
01:09Thanks for having me. I'm great. Thank you.
01:11Very happy to have you here to tell us a little bit more about, of course, your book.
01:15But before that, we, of course, want to unpack some of the recent news with the election in Myanmar.
01:22What do you think some of the results reveal and tell us about what's going on in Myanmar right now?
01:27Well, it's certainly an unsurprising result to many.
01:34It's an election that essentially provides a predetermined outcome
01:42that was essentially decided by the junta.
01:47Many inside Myanmar and also outside considers it as a sham election.
01:53Vast portions of the population were barred from taking part in the election
01:59or they actually boycotted the election themselves.
02:03And also the election could not take place in vast areas of the country
02:08that are still deeply affected by the ongoing civil war.
02:13So I guess the results tell us a lot about Myanmar's authoritarian regression.
02:20You mentioned a little bit about how most of the civilians were actually barred
02:25from taking part in the election.
02:27There's been some conflicting reports about the turnout.
02:31What do you think of that?
02:32Well, of course, we do not have clear, reliable figures
02:38with regards to the actual turnout of the election.
02:41The junta is claiming a very high turnout
02:44because that serves the narrative of the regime itself.
02:48But it's very hard to believe that the numbers they are sharing
02:53are actually realistic considering the situation on the ground.
02:58Right. Now, I also mentioned a little bit earlier about how this election,
03:03the results, unsurprising as you said, could potentially secure legitimacy
03:07for the next government.
03:09Do you see this happening or could it be a lot more complicated, complex in reality?
03:13I think we should distinguish between domestic legitimacy and international one.
03:19Domestically, the election does not add that much in terms of the credibility,
03:29the legitimacy of the government.
03:31As I said, it's no secret inside Myanmar that this was a purely cosmetic election
03:37to nurture that narrative that sees Myanmar now turning back
03:43and shifting back towards civilian rule after a period of national emergency.
03:48This is how the government labels it.
03:51Internationally, on the other hand, this narrative can be useful to engage with certain actors,
04:01external actors that are, of course, not very interested in Myanmar's democratic credentials.
04:07So the junta can claim a normalization of both its domestic politics
04:13as well as international relations following this election.
04:19So what do you think are some of the immediate implications that we can see domestically?
04:25Do you think that things would be business as usual?
04:28Unfortunately, I do not see this election as a step towards a process of national reconciliation,
04:35which is what we are all hoping for.
04:39The pro-democracy forces will certainly see this step as a form of further entrenchment
04:47and political closure by the junta.
04:51So I am afraid that this election process won't provide any form of de-escalation
04:58to the crackdown on dissent and the ongoing civil war in Myanmar.
05:04Actually, the opposite could be true.
05:06The junta could further intensify its repression of pro-democracy forces,
05:13claiming this popular mandate that allegedly the election provided.
05:22What does that mean then for General Min Ang Liang?
05:25Can we predict for him to potentially trade his military role for the presidency?
05:31How does that work?
05:32This is actually a move that is on the card.
05:36It would again fit this old narrative that the phase, the stage of national emergency
05:44and the direct military involvement in politics is over.
05:49He has been de facto acting as the president of Myanmar for quite some time,
05:55but a formal proclamation could again nurture that very cosmetic narrative,
06:02according to which now Myanmar is ready to go back to a civilian form of government,
06:09of course under military guardianship and oversight.
06:14What impact do you think this might have on the civil war,
06:17particularly looking at some of the ethnic armed organizations,
06:22the People's Defense Forces, of course?
06:24How have they responded or reacted to these results?
06:27Well, they largely boycotted the elections and they won't certainly change their stance now that the
06:38process is over. Again, when it comes to this ongoing confrontation between pro-democracy forces
06:45and the junta, the election marks yet another step in this authoritarian regression.
06:52It shows the arbitrary authoritarian once again nature of the military junta,
07:03despite these moves, this facade of legality and return to civilian rule that the election essentially symbolized.
07:14Do you think that this could potentially be the nail in the coffin,
07:18closing the door entirely on any return to civilian rule?
07:23What are some of the ways or the tactics for opposition forces to navigate around this?
07:31Well, I think we should be clear in terms of what we mean by civilian rule.
07:36Once again, if by civilian rule, we are thinking about the Myanmar of the mid to late 2010s,
07:45when the opposition forces were indeed allowed to take part in the election, to contest.
07:52In the election, I'm afraid that that kind of scenario will be extremely hard to materialize again.
08:03What we will see is the semblance of a civilian political life with the military-backed party,
08:13the USDP, which won the elections in a landslide, dominating parliament,
08:19and the armed forces retaining key veto powers and key decision-making powers over the
08:27future trajectory of Myanmar, both domestically and internationally.
08:32Now, we, of course, want to look at the humanitarian crisis on the sidelines of this all.
08:38What do you think is the potential political outcome?
08:41What does this mean for civilians that are already facing displacement, food insecurity,
08:47you know, limited access to aid?
08:51There's been also recent reports of even more attacks in some regions.
08:54What does this mean humanitarian-wise?
08:57You are absolutely right. There can definitely be a series of consequences related also to the
09:04humanitarian crisis that Myanmar has been enduring for a number of years now.
09:12Certainly, the issues that you were mentioning, access to aid, displacement,
09:21and political repression are structural problems that are caused by the civil war.
09:27And this election won't address any of these issues.
09:33So, for the ordinary Myanmar people on the ground, day-to-day survival actually will matter way more
09:41than these, you know, political arrangements that the junta is trying to orchestrate at the higher level.
09:48Do you think that this could also increase the risk that the junta might potentially use the
09:55results of the election and potentially, you know, get whatever credibility or legitimacy
10:01that it gains from this to restrict humanitarian access even further?
10:05I mean, I've been hearing from some humanitarian groups that it has already been quite difficult
10:09to access certain areas. Does this make it even harder?
10:12Yes, the risk is real. The junta is actually already using these elections as a sign to claim that now
10:22full sovereignty and order have been restored in Myanmar. So, access to humanitarian aid could be politicized
10:33even more. And restrictions might largely and deeply impact those vulnerable populations in the remote areas of Myanmar,
10:43where many minorities live. So, that's certainly a risk, a clear risk that the country is facing right now.
10:54You mentioned that it is on one of the cards up Min Ang Heng's sleeves that the junta rule might use this to,
11:02you know, entrench themselves even further in government rule. How do you think international aid organizations,
11:10aid groups can navigate this, still delivering or trying to deliver access to aid for a lot of the people in Myanmar,
11:18but at the same time, you know, working within this, you know, it's currently in limbo, I would say.
11:25So, how do you think is it for international aid groups to navigate this without, I guess, providing too much legitimacy for the government?
11:34Yeah, it's a political tightrope that needs to be worked. I think that, like, leaving this task completely in the ends of NGOs,
11:45namely brokering a deal with the regime in order to allow for the flow of humanitarian aid is a daunting task.
11:53And international institutions, I'm thinking about ASEAN, but not just ASEAN, should be the mediators,
12:00the brokers that create the conditions for NGOs to then step in and provide the relief that many Myanmar citizens are desperately needing.
12:14Yeah, you mentioned a little bit about ASEAN. What, maybe you can tell us a little bit just in general stance that ASEAN has taken towards this election.
12:23Have you noticed any change in their position since sometime of end of last year?
12:28No, I would say that ASEAN is continuing to rely on its playbook, its diplomatic toolkit.
12:35As you said at the start of this interview, there was a condemnation formally, but at the same time ASEAN's position on Myanmar is not that firm and clear cut.
12:49There are different sensitivities inside the association. Specifically, what ASEAN has been
13:00reiterating in the days and weeks after the election is its commitment to the five-point consensus,
13:07which is essentially the diplomatic centerpiece of its Myanmar policy. But unfortunately, and
13:14maybe we can talk a little bit more about it. As I show in the book, the five-point consensus is
13:21fraught with a series of limits that clearly hindered any possibility to achieve a real diplomatic breakthrough
13:31from 2021 all the way to 26. Before we go into that, you mentioned a little bit about some of the
13:38different sensitivities within ASEAN itself. With Philippines as chair of ASEAN this year, do you
13:44think that this could become a sort of thorn in the flesh for ASEAN, that it could potentially drive
13:52a division amongst the countries in how to navigate this? Well, if we want to sort of depict the
13:58positions of ASEAN countries on a continuum when it comes to the Myanmar issue, I would say that the
14:07Philippines has always tried to be somehow equidistant between those actors inside ASEAN who have been
14:14quite vocal. Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia are amongst those, and the countries that kept a much lower
14:23profile. Cambodia, Laos, Thailand. So it would be interesting to see how the Filipino chairmanship tries
14:31to navigate in between these different nuances that the association is clearly displaying right now.
14:42Could this then drive ASEAN to rethink its approach from the five-point consensus? I mean, you mentioned a
14:48little bit about some of the challenges that they've had with this approach. What are they? What's the
14:53obstacles here? Well, in my humble opinion, one of the clearest limits of the five-point consensus,
15:00as it was drafted back in 2021, is the role of the special envoy to Myanmar, who has to be essentially
15:10reappointed every year following the rotation of the ASEAN chairmanship itself. Actually, in 2025,
15:18Malaysia did quite a remarkable job when it comes to Myanmar, brokering a series of, especially one
15:28truce, one temporary truce in the conflict in the wake of the earthquake that struck Myanmar late last
15:37year. But unfortunately, all this progress, this engagement that was built with the junta has been
15:44now essentially erased by the fact that the special envoy role had to be handed over to the new chairman.
15:52So we are back at square one. And this is what has been happening for five years now. So probably a
15:58reform of the five-point consensus that contemplates a longer mandate for the ASEAN envoy will allow
16:08for a more incisive action on the part of the association. I mean, this incisive action,
16:15this reform, do you think this could realistically happen in the near future?
16:18Well, considering, you know, the way ASEAN works, its reliance on a consensus-driven decision-making,
16:24the so-called ASEAN way, that would mean bringing on board all the members of the association,
16:31which is a pretty difficult task to achieve in such a short span of time.
16:38Beyond ASEAN, I think it would be interesting to also look at some of the
16:42stance or the positions taken by other countries, major powers specifically. Before we go into Russia
16:48and China, we want to also look at the US. We've heard from some reports, the Trump administration
16:55instructing the State Department not to comment on foreign elections. And evidently,
16:59they've been rather silent on the recent election in Myanmar. What do you think,
17:04if we were to see the West continuing, remaining silent on this,
17:07what kind of impact could this have on Myanmar in the long term?
17:11Yeah, I mean, the sad reality is that it seems that the West has completely forgotten about Myanmar.
17:19If we look at the European Union, for instance, it has been quite vocally, at least on a rhetorical
17:25level in the past, in denouncing the abuses and the brutality of the Myanmar regime. But right now,
17:32the EU seems completely absorbed by the conflict in Ukraine on one hand, and also its pretty
17:39tumultuous relationship, transatlantic relationship with the United States.
17:44On the other hand, the Trump administration, as you said, essentially neglected the Myanmar issue,
17:51didn't pay any significant efforts in looking into this diplomatic crisis.
17:58That's in part a consequence of the America First ideology that shapes the Trump administration.
18:08But at the same time, in recent weeks, we have listened to President Trump voicing support
18:14for the civilians being repressed in Iran. On the other hand, he never actually expressed a similar
18:21sentiment towards the Myanmar crisis and the Myanmar population that is being so hardly repressed.
18:30It could potentially just be that Trump sees he's not going to get a win as easy and quick as he did
18:37with Thailand and Cambodia, which I think he enjoyed the attention that it had to do with that.
18:44With this Western disengagement, the lack of attention from the US, do you think that this pushes Myanmar
18:49even further into the orbit of other major powers, China and Russia?
18:54It is not an automatic consequence, but indeed we have witnessed, actually since 2017, since the brutal
19:05Rohingya crisis of 2017, a clear divorce, a clear fracture between Myanmar and the West.
19:15And this fracture has deepened even further in the last few years.
19:26As a result, Myanmar today relies on a much narrower set of diplomatic partners. Russia and China are at the top of this list.
19:37But what is interesting, and that is also one of the elements I try to unpack in my book, is that Myanmar is not completely isolated.
19:49It still maintains a certain degree of agency in dealing with these great powers and is using Russia and China as mutual counterweights.
20:00I think we received the pretty interesting news yesterday that Myanmar and Russia are finalizing or strengthening their military partnership, which has been
20:13a factor for quite some time now. Russia is by far the largest supplier of military hardware to the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's armed forces.
20:23So this is yet another sign that the junta is still trying to preserve its non-aligned posture, albeit the range of diplomatic partners that it can engage is rather limited.
20:41And let's not also forget that tacitly the junta has also tried to preserve and nurture its ties with India and Japan,
20:51which condemned the coup but never joined the sanction regime.
20:57Right. We of course want to talk a little bit about your book. Tell us what has been sort of in the back of your mind throughout this whole process of writing.
21:06I would say that the main reason that pushed me to write this book is essentially to dispel two cliches, two myths that are quite present,
21:18especially in the West when it comes to looking at what's going on in Myanmar.
21:23As I was mentioning just now, the first myth is that the junta is a completely rational and brutal actor.
21:32I'm not, of course, denying the brutality and the violence of what the junta has been doing,
21:39but there is a rationality, there is a logic in what it's doing, especially when it comes to the diplomatic and international alignments.
21:48And the second cliché that I wanted to correct with this book is that, again, Myanmar is isolated.
21:59Very often in the West we equate the world with us. So if a country doesn't maintain cordial and productive ties with the West, with the EU, with the United States,
22:13that means that country is marginalized or isolated in the international stage.
22:18The scenario, the picture is not so clear cut and black and white. So the junta, despite the divorce from the West that we were recalling just now, is not an isolated regime.
22:33And that's what I try to show in the book.
22:36Perhaps that's from the Western perspective, but do you think that ASEAN member states, some of these neighboring countries,
22:42do you think they have a deep understanding of the sort of situation, the sort of position that Myanmar is in globally?
22:50Well, of course, I think here in Southeast Asia, there is the awareness that the analysis should be far more nuanced.
23:00In the West, Westerners look at Myanmar from afar and the risk of oversimplifying the scenario and the analysis is real.
23:11And that's why I wanted, with this book, to speak both to a Southeast Asian audience, but also to a Western audience,
23:18in order to provide some elements that allow us to depict the Myanmar crisis in its real contours,
23:28rather than, again, relying on very simplistic schematic black or white representations of it.
23:35Do you talk a little bit in your book about some of the risks that we can expect from Myanmar,
23:41if it were to go on to this trajectory in the next potentially few years?
23:45Well, the risks, especially for Southeast Asia, are multiple.
23:51We are talking about a country that is essentially becoming a failed state in the heart of the region.
24:00And that triggers a series of security challenges from asymmetric security challenges
24:08to more traditional ones for neighboring countries, but I would argue for the region as a whole.
24:14So this is actually a litmus test for ASEAN to show that its role can be conducive to at least a de-escalation of the civil war.
24:26We are not expecting for any miracles happening overnight, but a de-escalation of the civil conflict would definitely be a welcome step in the right direction.
24:36Yeah, one of many things we can expect in your new book, Myanmar's post-coup foreign policy,
24:42weathering isolation and sanctions already out for pre-order.
24:45Thank you so much, Andrea, for joining us today, telling us a little bit about what we can expect,
24:50some of the immediate fallout implications from the recent election in Myanmar,
24:55some of the responses that we've seen from around the world, not as isolated as we'd like to believe.
25:00Of course, thank you once again for that. That is all on Awani Global this week.
25:04We'll catch you next time on Awani Global.
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